Well, I for one, do not allow my cats outside. I like the bird population around here. I have rescued and taken care of many cats dropped off near my driveway. If they make it down the long drive to my house I feed, clean , get shots, sometimes helped them give birth. It’s amazing how many horrible people find a lonely road and dump pets. It is the bane of my life. So far I have been able to home them. It’s kitten season so I am expecting it, any day to happen again. Peeps get your cats spayed or neutered, please. Ok, rant over.
Game is managed. They’ve got people who are willing to do that for them AND pay them.
Not sure what this means, but yes in certain areas outdoor cats can be killed by humans. I love cats, but feral and semi-feral cats are assholes. I don’t live very rural but the cats stay inside.
But if the owners had taken the responsibility they are legally required to, whether or not the dog is property would be moot because the situation would not have gotten that far.
Anyway, this is not news.
Dog Shoots Game Warden - that would be news.
I remember when I was a kid this happening on a farm nearby. A dog was “worrying sheep” as it’s known, and was shot by the farmer. We had recently gotten a dog of our own, and so we learned from that incident it was important to not let him run around the paddocks freely.
It was difficult, because a lot of the friendly dogs in our neighbourhood would often roam around, it was that kind of rural environment. Really something like that happening was almost inevitable.
HA!
Yup, it happens. Livestock worrying is an offence, but it’s still possible to encounter livestock on public access land without having first encountered any warnings or signs that the animals were present - I saw it happen on St Catherine’s Hill, Winchester - dog chasing a flock of sheep and wouldn’t stop until it was exhausted - in such a situation, the risk that a farmer will shoot the dog (or dog and sheep will run off a cliff together) is very real, but it seems like there’s no way to reduce the incidence of such things to zero.
My recently adopted dog got one free visit to the farm down the road. The farmer has sheep, goats, rabbits, and free range poultry. The dog didn’t harm any of the critters, but next time he shows up there he risks a bullet. So now the dog is supervised outside and wears an e-collar, and I don’t have to worry about him not listening when I call him, but he still gets to run and play and explore my property with the other dogs. I like to think I am a responsible dog owner. I didn’t just shrug and tell my neighbour that the dog just wants to play with the chickens, I took steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
It’s sad that the dog was shot by the game warden, and sad that the family lost their dog, but that is entirely the fault of the owners for not keeping their dog safe, especially after being issued warnings about allowing her to roam and run deer.
Dog Shoots Game, Warden would be worse.
Regards,
Shodan
Dumbshits. It wasn’t “playing” to the deer.
If you have a dog it’s your responsibility to control it.
I don’t care how sweet and lovable your dog is with you, a dog is still a predator/scavenger. Chasing animals is predatory behavior. Prey species like deer find it horribly threatening and stressful, it’s never fun or “play” for them, and allowing your dog to do this is cruel to the deer.
I am getting less and less patient with people who are irresponsible pet owners.
Ditto.
Back when my Quarter Horse Nick was alive, at one barn where I boarded a neighbor’s dog kept coming onto the property and into the paddocks among the horses. It didn’t attack, and the other horses were all pretty blase about dogs, but Nick hated dogs, hated them passionately, and would try to stomp them whenever he could. I’d actually seen him stalk a Doberman, then chase it the length of the arena he was turned out in, with murder in his heart.
So after a few times of returning the dog across the road and asking nicely for the people to keep it corralled, the next time the dog got loose and the teenage daughter came over to get it I flat-out told her, “My horse hates dogs. He will kill your dog if it comes into his paddock,” with suitably ugly details about what would happen. The girl’s crying and promising it won’t happen again but I didn’t soften. Goddammit! Not only is it begging to get stomped some day, but their house is right next to active railroad tracks!
Why? I’m not being a jerk. I’d really like to know why it’s unreasonable. I’ve had active dogs, and leash-training them was no picnic, but the more active the dog, the more important it was to keep him leashed–not just to protect animals from him but to keep him from getting hurt by wildlife or a car speeding down a country road.
Active dogs need a LOT of exercise, meaning lots of leashed walking (or running), even in inclement weather, and a fenced yard alone isn’t always enough room. Is that why you say it’s unreasonable?
As a serial Husky rescue owner I know that an active dog doesn’t require time off leash.
As we co-domesticated each other dogs changed to the point where stop their pray drive once they down an animal. Some people assume that “dog enjoy killing” but it is really that we bred them to not compete for resources. They will go on chain killing sprees given the chance.
Even if it isn’t a bullet that gets them, they don’t understand traffic or other modern issues particularly when their prey drive kicks in.
This is 100% the fault of the owner and I feel sorry for the poor dog.
If keeping a dog on a leash, or in a yard at all times was mandatory, I would consider it immoral to own one as a pet. My dog is built to run - it would be cruel to prevent that.
Thisis my dog running in the park - this activity would not be possible on a leash - the only dogs I ever see on a permanent leash in this popular location are animals which are muzzled (and presumably perhaps present some sort of danger to humans) and puppies which are not yet trained for recall.
About a handful of occasions per year, I will see deer in this park - there are more deer in Britain now than at any point in recorded history and they go everywhere - even into city centres.
The notion that every risk can and should be controlled and eliminated is just nonsense - this idea is the same thing that has given us helicopter parents whose children have never been allowed to climb a tree (yes, children could fall from a tree and die).
I let my dog run off the lead in the park and in the woods. I am very alert and if I spot wildlife or livestock, I get her on the leash; on one or two occasions, she has chased animals and on one of those occasions, I thought I had lost her for good. I’d be upset if anything happened to her and (although I never let her off leash anywhere close to a road) I would be completely to blame if she chased a deer a long distance and it ran into the path of a car or something.
We should all do our best, within reason, but you can’t control everything. Sometimes a kid is going to fall out of a tree and die; sometimes a dog is going to chase an unexpected wild animal and get shot or cause an accident; Sometimes that baby in the plane seat next to you is going to cry uncontrollably for the whole flight and it will be a bad day. Asserting “someone should always have stopped this thing from happening” just indicates a frail grasp of the concept of ‘reasonable’.
Now, I’m not going to argue that’s what happened in the linked story in this thread - it sounds there like there was a pattern of actual and obvious neglect of ‘reasonable’.
Yes, dogs can be trained to return on command, and if your dog is trained to do so in a fairly reliable manner than having them off-leash in a park or other appropriate environment is reasonable.
That is different than simply turning the animal out to wander - and I wonder if the dog in the OP was one of those.
I really liked your video of Eva. It is obvious you have her under control. Most people are not that aware. They just unleash the dog and stand around.
P.S. you need to put Eva in agility trials. I bet fly-ball would be fun, too.
It sounds like maybe it was.
However, even with dogs trained for recall, some stimuli (a deer, a rabbit, a squirrel) might override the training - with training (animals and children) there is no magic formula that guarantees 100% compliance and obedience.
Yeah, although if she sees a deer, she will trot towards it and if it breaks into a run, she will run with it - and probably no amount of calling, shouting, blowing my whistle will stop her.
I’m actually fairly sure she just thinks deer are big dogs - because in the couple of cases where she’s run after them, she makes the same ‘wait for me’ bark that she does if she was running after a greyhound or lurcher.
She’s probably a bit small and fragile for some of that, but she does always enjoy balance-walking along fallen tree trunks when I’m out in the woods.
Mr.Wrekker has deer dogs. Certain times of the season you can use dogs for deer stalking. Any other time, if they are loose your asking for them to get shot by fox hunters or bird hunters. A fox hunter will shoot their own dog if he runs deer. It’s a big no-no.