Not Happy Today

[QuinnFamilyFarm]

Yesterday our flock was visited by a not-so-friendly K-9. He took out half of our flock, two ducks, a guinea and ripped our rooster apart (rooster was still alive, but in total shock so we had to put him down). We had about 25 birds and we are planning to increase to 100 by the end of the year..This has set us back a little bit and really broken our hearts. We feel like we failed our birds, but we just haven't had predator issues on our free range system in the past because we have a dog who guards pretty well. Our dog was just much smaller than the one who attacked so she couldn't help this time. We plan to build a much larger chicken house this weekend with a 1/2 acre of portable electric poultry netting to keep the dogs out. Hopefully we will be able to prevent this from happening again...

 

[blucoondawg]

Sorry to hear that, do you know who owns the dog? If so I would document what happened and go to them with a heafty bill for replacement of birds and repair of any damaged fencing, I would also file a report with the sheriff's department and inform the dog owner that next time their dog comes on my land it will not be leaving. That may make the neighbor think twice about letting the dog roam, it will likely be back for more at some point, hopefully the electric fence will deter it, I hate that people need to go to added expense when their system seems to be working well simply because some dog owner refuses to take responsibility for their dogs.

 

[QuinnFamilyFarm]

The only issue with that is that we live in the country so there is no leash law and our dogs roam too. If my dogs killed livestock of another farmer then I would expect them to take proper action to take care of the dog or require restitution from me,but we just don't keep our dogs chained up out here... We have no idea who owns the dog, but we are trying to find out to see what we can do. If he comes back, he may not leave anyway.

 

[blucoondawg]

Are you positive there is no law? I too live in the country, out in the woods in northern Wisconsin, and the county does have an animal control ordinance, it is not heavily enforced unless complaints are called in, in other words there isn't a dog catcher going around looking for dogs, but if one comes on my property and does damage I can file a complaint and owner will be fined, it is also legal for me to kill a dog doing damage to my property or attacking my pets or livestock according to this ordinance. Some areas the authorities will put the dog down no questions asked for attacking livestock.

 

[blucoondawg]

Your State actually does have a state wide leash law, I did a simple search on google and found a couple websites, here is a link to the one with the most info, it seems to be the actual laws:

http://www.animallaw.info/statutes/stustnst44_17_101_505.htm#s44_4_408

The other site I found was a law firm website with links to every states dog at large ordinances, Tennessee's laws basically state that it is illegal to allow dogs to run at large unless they are hunting or herding livestock, so whomever owns this dog is definitely breaking state law. I did not read further but there is likely a stipulation concerning livestock damage somewhere in there as well.

 

[peeweesfarm]

I live in a area where the lots are 5 acres plus , have several hundred dogs in the area(sled dogs)musher's keep there dogs tight , we have dogs an pigs, chickens( 15 hens an a roo) ,I use the wireless fencer on are dogs , they never leave the 100 ft area the base gives them, I have shot at 1 dog in the year I have had chickens , he has not come back , rat shot does work .

 

[QuinnFamilyFarm]

I know I should never assume...but I had always assumed that the leash law ended at the city limit sign. Thanks for the link! I know that it is definitely legal for us to kill the dog, but I will be looking into this as well!

 

[blucoondawg]

Even if you don't know who owns the dog the best thing to do for starters is to report the incident to law enforcement that the dog has killed however many birds in 1 or 2 attacks, pictures help and having the carcasses on hand is even better but even if you don't have that stuff just tell them you didn't know there was a leash law for this sort of thing and tell them what happened and describe the dog but tell them you don't know who owns it, they may even wait for the dog and follow it home to find the owners and make sure your debt is paid.