My dogs attacked my goat!

Just curious - is your female GSD intact and about to come into season or in standing season? I have the gut feeling that she initialed the attack - intact females are much more aggressive + unpredictable when it comes to breeding season - the way you described your male's guarding behavior, I do not see how he would attack the goat unprovoked.

I have had 2 white GSD females [not simultaneously, several years apart] who both snapped somewhere around age 3-4 - and went from well behaved and reliably obedience trained, to totally unreliable off leish.

I've had goats attacked and killed by dogs for no apparent reason. The goats were on tethers, the two dogs circled and then pounced. Once the first goat was down, they partially ate her, left then came back for more (we discovered this after the fact). The second trip, it was only after extremely concentrated yelling, flailing and such that they left - and they came back a third time but this time I had the gun out (they ran at that).

This happened in town. The dogs, neighborhood pets, had no prior history of attacking anything or anyone. But once they had the taste of blood, they lost whatever domestication they had and became the predators they are under the skin. If a small child had been in the way the second time they returned, there is no reason to suspect they would not have attacked said child. Until the gun was fired, they showed no fear of humans (only the rocks and such chased them off).

I do NOT agree that a dog would not attack a child or other animal once it's attacked and been blooded. I've seen the tragedy of that mentality too many times through the years. It's a shame to think that man's best friend, the one whom normally we entrust our beloveds with without question, could ever turn like that. But remember, they are, under the skin, a predator. Even man, under certain circumstances, loses his "civilized" veneer.

Your children/family come first. You are not to blame for this; no one is to blame, really. It sounds as if you've already decided what needs to be done, hard as it may be. If you do introduce them to lead, you have both my condolences (on the loss) and my support.

Please keep us posted on the goatie babies.

~Falcon

Would it be possible a bobcat or some such critter attacked the goat and the dogs ran it off then circled the goat to make sure she was ok?

__________________
Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
-Davy Crockett

Ted, you're dreaming.....

Oh boy...sorry that happened. But dogs are dogs and thats what they do. My dogs are trained to not kill the chickens but DD had a friend over and they decided to chase chickens with the dogs nearby....well one of the dogs wanted to play too and yup she killed one of my baby chicks
Now DD knows not to run with the birds with the dogs out but she did not put them away first.
I hope your dogs never do that again.

__________________
You Know You Need More!!!
Crashy

Suitcase Sally,

What makes me think about that is that he hasn't said he CAUGHT the dogs in action and also keep in mind a vet isn't necessarily a professional at reading evidence off an animal unless he is one of those new-fangled animal foresnic scientists. If the vet is a hunter, then he might know what he's talking about. I'm curious to know whether he did catch the dogs in the action or did he catch them at the END? That is my question at present time.

__________________
Ted H

You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas.
-Davy Crockett

I caught the neighbors 2 labs in my sheep pen, 3 feeder lambs severly injured. Let go with a load of birdshot in my 12 gauge and they ran off. Neighbor wouldn't believe his dogs did it. One dog was limping so he took it to vet. Vet removed shot pellets from the dogs back end. Neighbor then believed me. I don't know why, but sometimes dogs are triggered by something and do things they never do otherwise. It doesn't necessarily a trait of any particular breed of dog.

__________________
* I'm supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find one. .*-

I am also so sorry about your goat. Dogs can do serious damage, especially to goats. It would kill me to have to do it...but I wouldn't have a dog on my place that would do that. Especially with children to be responsible for. I would put the dog or dogs to sleep, period. sorry to be so drastic. Take care, mary.

Once a dog breaks the trust I have in him as yours did, he becomes a risk Im not willing to take. Their next victim might not be a goat.

Pete's wife, Chandra here...

Sorry, didn't know about this thread here, Pete wrote the exact same thing on the goat forum, and that's where I've been following along. To answer a few questions:

Our daughter came upon the scene and found Cupcake on the ground with the dogs standing over her and "pawing at her" (our daughter's words). I don't believe it would have been a coyote (no bobcats around here), as this was within the dogs' territory, the dogs were nearby, and a coyote couldn't have done this damage before being run off by the dogs. There was no blood immediately visible on the dogs, but there was very very little blood on Cupcake as well, so that is not indicative of anything.

I don't believe it was the female who instigated it. She is not in heat (has puppies right now, but nowhere near the goats, so no possiblity of a perceived threat there) and she completely ignores the goats. Ruger is the only one who ever expressed any interest in the goats. As was mentioned in a separate thread, the herding instinct is actually a refined prey drive (we didn't know this) that requires training. Ruger was not trained in herding, and therefore we suspect that some action of Cupcake's triggered the prey drive overtaking the herding instinct.

This has not "blooded" the dogs, they are farm dogs as well as pets and have always kept down our wild critter problem by killing any and all rabbits, raccoons, and opposums that come too near our place.

The dogs are firmly established as the bottom rungs of the pack; our children are mostly the ones who feed them and can take their food away at any time with absolutely no show of aggression or complaint from either of the dogs. When our daughter discovered the dogs on Cupcake, one yell from her was all that was needed to stop everything instantly and send them scampering away (and she's only just 9 years old). I do not doubt for a second that the dogs firmly recognize the children as pack leaders.

We will not ever trust the dogs with the livestock again, no question about that. I still trust them with my children (under supervision, of course), and I don't think I'm either stupid or entirely irresponsible. This was a freak occurance with a legitimate "prey", IMO.

Just because a dog attacks an animal does not mean they are a danger to people. Look at all of the hunting dogs. They are very prey orientated.
Sometimes this happens. An animal will do something that causes one dog to attack an animal and the other will join in. Sometimes it is the last dog you would think would do such a thing.
It would be best to watch the dogs closely for a while so any other interest in the goats can be caught in time to stop anything from happening.

You are not stupid or irresponsible. These things happen sometimes. It is all part of raising animals.

I love my house dog and I would trust her in a nursery full of newborn humans. I would not allow her anywhere near a tethered goat.

Do yourself a favor and don't tether a goat. I'm surprised the goat didn't break it's neck which is very common when a dog chases or spooks a tethered goat.

Don't I remember reading a post where you shot rabbits and threw them to your dogs? Possibly you awakened their hunter/killer instincts and reinforced the behavior.

__________________
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence"
Robert Frost

After reading some of the other responses, I'm wondering if one dog did something that the other perceived as aggressive and then did something aggressive thinking it was joining in, and that just started a cycle of attack... I'd also be curious to know what the dog's breeding is. Our GS is from a Schutzhund background (her father was an East German import and so were her maternal grandparents, just about every dog on both sides for 6-7 generations back was Schutzhund titled), so she's got a bit different instincts than one that came from a herding background, or one that came from a long line of pets.

I agree that you probably shouldn't trust either dog around the livestock unsupervised. Make sure that your children and yourselves continue to maintain your dominant status in the pack and you shouldn't have any problems as far as that goes...

I have a dog with a very high prey drive with small animals (cats, skunks , raccoons, porcupines , rats, etc.) but he's excellent with kids, and is only ever aggressive toward adult men with mustaches (he was a shelter dog and we're pretty sure he was abused). But with anyone else he's fine. It's funny too because if we're home, he's very aggressive toward anyone who shows up on our property until we tell him it's okay, but if we're gone, he could care less! He's hooked out on our back porch most of the time, and he's within reach of where we fill our oil tank, but as long as we're not home the oil guys can come fill the tank without a problem!

I hope Cupcake is doing better now.

maybe the mom goat got miffed and took an agressive run at the dog for getting between her and the kids....

and well... the dog reacted.

I dunno.

Please don't blame your dogs. Just because in the past they've never shown any tendancy towards attacking your livestock, the German Sheperd breed is NOT a livestock guardian breed, they are bred to be herding dogs... therefore their instinct is NOT to protect other animals!

Any time you put them in a situation like that, you are setting them up for failure.

You wouldn't use a Great Pyrenees or Anatolian Shepherd to herd your livestock, they'd fail miserably.

__________________
http://tinksquared.com

Sorry about your daughter's goat. That's a real bummer. We will not tether our goats without being outside, somewhere around them. We have 2 retrievers and a hound shepherd mix. They are all good dogs but they are still dogs. No trainer will ever train instinct out of a dog without destroying it's spirit.

These things always happen when no one's watching and we would never suspect. One of the dogs probably got to close and the goat moved away to quickly, then that was it. The dog perceived it as running and jumped on the goat with the other one joining in on the frenzy. The dogs will always chase what's running. It's what they do.

__________________
Dahc.

no possibility you just missed the stray dog the GS's chased off? and the pawing was your dogs just being a goats best buddy?

stray dogs here can appear and disapear like ghosts....