Chicken owner killed lab trying to attack him and his flock

[centrarchid]

I do not recall such an arrangement. Everyone knew neighbors and dogs they owned. There was a level of tolerance when dogs did not cause issues. When most farmers had similar assemblages of livestock and crops, the dogs where expected to be good around livestock on the owners property and in most instances the dog performed similarly when out and about. There were exceptions where dogs were killed but that was not the rule or established pattern.

 

[3riverschick]

That is correct. It was common practice to shoot both stray dogs AND cats and any dogs found running deer or livestock on your land, be they have a collar or not. That is still in practice in many rural communities today....like my own. My neighbor checks with me about what cats I currently have and leaves them be...all others are usually shot. He doesn't have any livestock to protect, it's just how it's done here. No one likes the toms spraying their porches with scent or females having kits under their houses and such.

It's quite rare for any dog that is dropped off out here to last more than a week or two without being shot or hit on the road...if they are a hound breed, they last longer. Most country folk know that it's real easy to lose a hound while out hunting with him, so they leave those pretty much alone or make more efforts to restore them to the owner.

Needless to say, those are also the communities where there is no feral cat problem and never has been, even where barn cats were allowed to breed as they wished. The intact males would kill all male kittens, even consume them or parts of them. Intact males also had a distinct territory and would protect it and any females they had there to the death, so the male population was much thinned down just by natural instinct of the intact cats. No one was feeding cats food on a regular basis either, so females weren't having litter after litter either...usually one litter a year, if that, much like wild animals do. Those kittens would then go on to be hunters that were thinned down even further by the wildlife in their hunting territory.

In short, no problems out in the country with over population of cats or dogs.

Yup. We used to get cats dropped of at our place. Took them to a farm up the road to be ratters. Had a Redbone Coonhound show up on day. Kept him for a week before owner was found. It was local boy who didn't know the breed or that it was a Redbone Coonhound. Just was his red dog, smile. I was so glad to get them together again. I would never take a hunting dog to the pound. Someone will be searching for it. We live in rural western PA, USA.
Best,
Karen

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Yup. We used to get cats dropped of at our place. Took them to a farm up the road to be ratters. Had a Redbone Coonhound show up on day. Kept him for a week before owner was found. It was local boy who didn't know the breed or that it was a Redbone Coonhound. Just was his red dog, smile. I was so glad to get them together again. I would never take a hunting dog to the pound. Someone will be searching for it. We live in rural western PA, USA.
Best,
Karen

Someone like me WILL search the pound first if my dog comes up missing.... So maybe at least put a call in to let them know you have it??

 

[Ridgerunner]

Different states have different laws. Here in Arkansas and across the border in Oklahoma it is illegal to shoot a dog that is on your property unless it is threatening you, yours, or harassing or killing your animals. Dogs cannot reads “No Trespassing” signs and don’t recognize property lines. Arkansas and Oklahoma have strong hunting traditions, often using dogs. Just because a dog trees a raccoon on your property does not give you the right to shoot that dog according to state law. There have been newspaper stories where people were arrested for shooting dogs that went on their property, one was let out on $15,000 bail awaiting trial. According to law, if the dog is threatening you or your animals that’s a totally different story, you are allowed to protect people and your animals.

When he was a teenager in Tennessee my younger brother saw that a pack of dogs had trapped some of our cows and calves against a fence, trying to kill a calf. He shot the leader and was grateful the rest ran away. It was months before he told me that story but I remember how relieved he was they ran away. I shot two dogs here in Arkansas. They had been abandoned out here and I had dead chickens to show why I shot them. Shooting a dog is not something I take lightly. I didn’t see any other option but that doesn’t mean I like doing it. That’s a big part of why I put up electric netting instead of free ranging, so I wouldn’t have to shoot another one.

There have been times I’ve seen dogs apparently abandoned out here. I checked with neighbors to make sure they hadn’t recently acquired a new dog, then took them to the pound. It’s free to drop a dog off there if you can prove county residence. But I don’t do that after they have learned to kill farm animals. I haven’t had the situation yet where one was threatening people but I’ll leave it up to you to figure out how I’d handle that.

This is kind of timely. Last week as I turned onto out private road I saw someone that looked like they were abandoning a couple of dogs. I stopped to chat and worked how it is free to drop dogs off at the pound into the conversation. He also saw me writing down his license number. Those dogs were not abandoned here.

One more story. A neighbor’s husband died and her granddaughter gave her a puppy to help keep her company. Luckily that pup never bothered my chickens, but he did chase her son’s cattle and her nephew’s horses. That pup soon disappeared, I think it was her son. I was really glad I didn’t have a reason to shoot that recent widow’s pup. It’s not like she is a stranger. I’ve given her excess green beans to can. She once asked if I could take care of a snake at her house when her relatives were at work. She is a neighbor.

My experiences growing up in the country and living in the country is closer to Centrarchid’s than some others. You can always find someone that will shoot a stray animal, but we didn’t shoot an animal on our property just because it wasn’t ours. Dogs in the country have jobs, often involving protecting animals or crops like gardens. They cannot do that job if they are restrained and pasture fences certainly don’t stop them. As long as they didn’t cause damage or threaten people, they were left alone. If they did give reason, they were shot.

I’ll make a distinction here, I’m talking about the country. Suburbia and subdivisions are different, in those tight quarters people should restrain their dogs. That’s a totally different world than out here.

 

[Beekissed]

That's the main reason I got this new LGD pup to work alongside my old dog, Jake. Jake is too dog friendly, but the LGD breeds are more known for keeping other dogs off the land. My old GP/Lab mix female was really good for that but she aged and died, so no more stray deterrent....Jake just wanted to play with them.

So far Ben has fulfilled that expectation and we've not had to shoot any strays that have come back to investigate the flock....he's diligent in running them off quickly. No blood shed, no feeling bad about killing an animal that has an irresponsible owner, no stress.

No one here likes killing a predator of any kind unless they just have to, but especially a dog. That hurts in a different way.

 

[Ridgerunner]

That's the main reason I got this new LGD pup to work alongside my old dog, Jake.  Jake is too dog friendly, but the LGD breeds are more known for keeping other dogs off the land.  My old GP/Lab mix female was really good for that but she aged and died, so no more stray deterrent....Jake just wanted to play with them. 

So far Ben has fulfilled that expectation and we've not had to shoot any strays that have come back to investigate the flock....he's diligent in running them off quickly.  No blood shed, no feeling bad about killing an animal that has an irresponsible owner, no stress.  

No one here likes killing a predator of any kind unless they just have to, but especially a dog.  That hurts in a different way. 

That describes my feelings, but I do dispatch certain predators. Sometimes you have to do what you feel you have to do, pleasant or not.

 

[Beekissed]

I agree....that's the reality of keeping livestock of any kind. Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do if you want to have keep livestock from becoming dead stock.

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
I agree. At no time should the welfare of an animal come before the welfare and rights of a human being or their livestock.

 

[thomasboyle]

Looks like the OP is long gone.

While it may be necessary to shoot any animal that is killing livestock, that should not be our go to answer when seeing a dog we don't recognize. I would call to it, see if it comes over. It may be someone's pet, and they would be just as grateful as I would be if it were my lost dog to have their dog back.

I raise chickens knowing they are at the very bottom of the food chain. They will be hunted by bears, coyotes, dogs, bobcats, raccoons and more at a moments notice. I can't be out there protecting them with my guns 24/7, so I built the best defense I know how. I set up electric net fencing around my 1/4 acre chicken yard. I built a chicken pen that has both 2"x4" field fencing all around and 1/2 hardware wire from top to bottom. My coop has an outer wall of 5/8" plywood and inner walls of 1/4" plywood. I have my own dogs that I make sure mark the yard all around the chicken yard. I went from 1-2 losses a month to 0 losses in 3 years. The predators are all there still, I get pics of them on my game cameras each week. But they haven't figured out how to get past all the defense layers I have set up. At some point, they probably will get past my defenses, and if and when that happens, I'll figure out another layer of defense.

I have shot animals, mostly rabid animals where shooting them was the merciful thing to do - very pitiful sight if you have seen them staggering around. But it is not fun. I feel bad to have to take a life. I try and live by the golden rule. If it were my dog that got loose, I would hope that someone who finds him would not shoot him simply because he is on their property.

 

[DMSelena]

I live in a semi-rural part of Texas where we raise chickens and other small livestock on our small-acreage homestead. My main gig is marketing, but I also groom dogs for a little extra income but mostly because I enjoy it. I absolutely love dogs. So much that I specialize in "gentle handling" grooming, which means most of my clients are old, sick, nervous, or aggressive dogs that other groomers won't take, and I usually opt not to restrain them while I'm grooming because it can cause stress and breathing problems. However, despite all of this, I have never been bitten in all my time grooming independently.

I say all of that because I want to make it very clear that I respect that dogs are thinking ,feeling creatures with an innate right to be treated without cruelty on their terms as dogs, not as human-replacements or chattel (even if the law regards them as such). However, I feel the exact same way about all of the animals in my care.

I will not allow a dog to remain in my care or otherwise on my property if they are terrorizing my other charges. My chickens have feelings and thoughts, as well, and they, too, have a right to live without cruelty. When a dog terrorizes or kills a chicken, it is almost always cruel, because the dog did not need to kill that chicken. They almost certainly didn't need to eat that chicken or risk starvation, and most of the time they don't eat what they kill anyway. I can understand a raccoon, a fox, or a hawk killing my chickens. They live on the edge of starvation and have no one to care for them. It is my duty to protect them, not the predator's to change their nature.

It is the same with dogs. The dog is following their nature, and it is the duty of whomever is responsible for that dog to protect them from following that nature into acts of cruelty. If the dog has no owner and is genuinely hungry, I will make an effort to take it in, bring it to health, and rehome it, but this is not always possible. It is also not the usual situation. The vast majority of dogs that end up on my fenced and locked property are there because their owners do not or cannot contain them, and they don't understand -- or don't care about -- the consequences of allowing that dog to roam. Furthermore, it is almost always repeat offenders.

Size and breed is not always a reliable predictor. I have had an entire flock of guinea fowl wiped out by a small dachshund-minpin mix, and I have had massive pit bulls run away from my free ranging rooster. Dog breeds that were created for hunting fowl (spaniels, sight-hounds, etc.) are high risk, but other breeds seem to be entirely down to the personality of the dog. Despite their reputation and their overwhelming numbers out here, pit bulls don't always attack my livestock, but when they do, they maim them horribly due to their bite-and-shake method. I've healed some chickens from dog attacks, but pit bull attacks are invariably deadly, and pit bull owners are invariably in denial about their dog's ability to cause that kind of damage.

Prior behavior with people is also a terrible indicator. I have had two of my own sweetest dogs stalk and kill multiple fowl for sport, leaving scenes of carnage behind that you can't imagine, only to jump up on the couch afterwards and snuggle me in the most loving way possible. I euthanized both of them myself, because it would be irresponsible to keep a dog like that around my livestock, and immoral to adopt it out to the public knowing that it has killed livestock, and that statistics show that dogs who do tend to injure people eventually, too, especially children.

I also have dogs who create scenes so precious that the photos are worthy of TheDodo,com, sleeping in a warm pile of baby chicks and bravely protecting them from predators when the chicks got old enough to live outside. One of these dogs is a complete jerk to other dogs and is a bite risk to people she doesn't know (she's never bitten anyone, yet, but I don't take her out in public for that reason). So, I know that not all dogs kill chickens, and how they act toward people or other dogs is absolutely no indication of how they will act toward prey animals.

But owners are rarely good at judging this. It is the same with my grooming clients. Some of the worst-behaved dogs that threaten to bite the quickest and require the most time and patience to groom, are the ones the owners insist are the sweetest babies who would never hurt a fly. On the contrary, dogs whose owners worry about the most are often the easiest-going and sociable dogs once their owners are gone and not making them feel like there is something to be anxious about. I groom out of my home, and some of my clients can be allowed to run around the house and the yard without a leash and they never bother anybody else. Others have to be watched strictly and kept on a lead at all times. I have never, ever had an owner accurately predict which kind of dog their's will be once they leave.

All of this is to say that although I know most people love their dogs, they don't understand them. They think their dogs are furry human children and this makes them utterly irrational about their dog's potential to be deadly to other animals. These same people often don't think of chickens as anything other than a food item in the grocery store, and they can't process how difficult it is, both financially and emotionally, to lose one to their dog. However, it isn't just chickens. I have seen people try to save dogs who have maimed small children, because the dog "just lacked training" or "needs a proper environment" or something else like that. These people often make petitions like the one the OP has against him.

I wish better education for the public existed about dogs. Most otherwise well-meaning, good-hearted people just have no idea how their dog's brain works, or how important it is to treat a dog with respect for its nature. It's fine to love a dog intensely and cuddle it, dress it up in cute clothes and cook meals for it, as long as you also know that the dog is not a human child. It can never be. Because of that fact, if a dog is allowed to run loose, follows its nature and kills or terrorizes someone else's animals on their property, the cruelty lies not in the person who takes deadly action to protect their animals, but in the dog's owner whose own selfish need to imagine that their predator is a surrogate child resulted in neglect for the proper protections and restrictions a predator requires to live responsibly in a community.

All of that said, I think it is in the OPs best interest to not speak further on this incident here or anywhere else online, now that everyone here knows the specific incident with which he is connected. If his lawyer has not already advised him thus, anything he says here can be used for evidentiary purposes in court.