Dog problems

I'm not sure exactly how the language is written here in KY although I do know it is legal to shoot a dog harassing livestock on your property (have friend/neighbor that's a deputy) but in MT I know it was written that if the dog was shot on your property you were absolutely within your rights. However, you wouldn't want to move the animal (as in deliver to owner) as it might then be difficult to prove where the dog was when he was shot.

I am more angry at the owner, whoever it may be, at putting me in the position of having to shoot a dog simply for being a dog and following instinct than I am at the dogs themselves. Unfortunately, it's not legal to shoot the owner rather than the dog.

I have a dog the visited my place and caused me several hundred buckeroos. If it show up again it will not leave ever.

What does SSS stand for?

Build a trap.
Use it.
Shut up.
Got it?
Dog gone.
jim

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If an elected official is in charge of a budget and that budget is not balanced, the elected official is not eligible for re-election until the budget is balanced.
Be a leader not a follower

Shoot, shovel and shut up.

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Yeah look its probably different where you are. We are retired off a 20.000 acre farm and I tell you, If anyone heard a dog barking, or our livestock or dogs were agitated, and our work dogs were accounted for......Then it would be all hands on deck, high powered rifles, 4x4's, spotlights and two way radios.
Those dogs would be found and would be shot.
There would be no grace given no matter whose dog was shot.
If for some reason one of our work dogs was on someone elses property I would expect it to be shot, night or day.
Thats on a farm, but where we live now, rural 4 acres fully and securely fenced with auto open/closing gates and patrolled by a 175lb Sth African Boerboel, well we just dont have dog problems here.
The other thing I thought about was people wanting to go talk to the owners, or get the shire/county involved.......DONT.
Just thought Id share

Cheers..........Scul

I do not know your Laws, but here You must keep your dogs on Your property and if Animal control catches your dog on someone elses property You will pay a Fine if they can prove its yours. I do not call animal control, I do the Fire-Man Control. I will not say that if a dog gets TO CLOSE to where my animals are kept that I would SSS, because if I did say that----I would be forgetting what the last "S" stands for.

Two choices: harden the target or harden your heart.

For hardening the target, I am very fond of electric fencing. Call me cruel but there is something I find VERY satisfying and that is the sound of a neighborhood mongrel being introduced to a hot fence.....I chuckle every time I hear it. Repeat offenders or ANY attacking my critters and it is SSS.....All my surrounding neighbors operate on the same principle so random shots at all times of the day/night are not uncommon.

That's more or less the situation I grew up with. Different where I am now, very small acreages, lots of people in the local area, even though it is 'rural'. All of them have dogs, most of whom are not confined and of course with such a heavy population density you do have to be aware of what is in the direction you are shooting.

The attitude toward wayward dogs is, fortunately, still mostly on the side of the owner of the livestock which does help to some extent. I'm still not happy about being forced to be the one to deal with someone else's lack of responsibility and I hate the fact that it is the dogs that pay for that even though they are not at fault. But I'm also not going to allow predators ... which is what they are, whether they are feral or someone's pets ... to injure or kill my livestock.

I have had more problems with dogs than any other predator when it comes to my chickens. I had two dogs beak into a pen I was keeping poults in and they killed everything, 35 +/- chickens. It was bad, I was finding chickens a week latter by smell scattered across my property.

The best thing I have found is a good dog who doesn't allow trespassers and will not be a problem himself. They are hard to find and are not breed specific. My old Mastif had a perfect track record, not one chicken was ever lost when he was on duty. Bad thing is he is no longer around and it took awhile to find another good dog.

Last thing I want to do is kill a neighbors dog, but if it comes down to it my livestock have every right to be secure on my property. I have only issued three death warrants and luckily have not had to cash one in. Shooting them with a BB gun does work, and an electric fence does as well. I have kept my chicken tractor inside the paddock with the cattle. My chickens are free range, and if a dog comes they can go under the fence and dogs are very sensitive to the fence and will not follow.

A lot of people don't even think their family dog would do such things. If I have a reccuring problem dog I will try to fix the problem diplomatically, if that fails there is a time to shoot shovel and shut up.

All my neighbors have dogs and most of them run. It is maddening. One got hit by a car this winter and and there was much hue and cry in the neighborhood about reckless holiday delivery drivers or visitors from out of town (didn't hear a single peep about maybe keeping your dogs home). They took him to the vet and had him fixed up. Didn't see him for a few weeks but then I guess the cast came off because Gimpy is out and about again. Big vet bill didn't seem to change his owners' habits one whit. Rather than shoot every idiot's dog, I'm just building stout perimeter fence using goat/sheep mesh (4x4 openings). At great expense, with much difficulty, and over a period of many years.

I can't stand irresponsible dog owners. BUT we do have a lot of coyotes around as well, so I'm consoling myself with the fact that this fence will keep the dogs AND the 'yotes out, as well as keeping our goats, chickens and horses in. Phase 1 is fencing in the immediate farmstead from the road down to the creek. Might finally get that finished by spring of next year. Phase 2 is fencing the rest of the farm beyond the creek. I have no idea how many years that will take.

My wife came outside the house the other day in time to see a man unwrapping his 2 leashed dogs from around one of our 2 yr. old apple trees 5 ft. inside the curb on our lawn. I need to see him soon so I can have a word with him. What kind of person lets his dogs walk on your land and pee and poop and walk through flower beds and wrap up small trees while on leashes? I can't imagine it myself. I was not raised that way.

You know the kinds of problems I have been having here too. And how it pretty much blew up in my face, when I "tried" to work with the local police and animal control.
Next year, no quarter.... SSS

I will not have my animals hurt or stress out again, because people with dogs have no manners whats so ever. And they think they have all the rights to do what ever they want.

At least in Oregon, I had so many aggressive predators, cougars, bears...etc...etc.... loose dogs weren't a problem. Predators took care of them for us.

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Shari

check your local predation laws. They are usually more generous to the farmer than one expects. Otherwise, if you don't want to shoot them, trap them and turn them over to animal control, without introducing yourself if you are worried about the owners. They make wolf sized live traps.

Thre first or second time the owners have to "bail them out" or lose them to the system, they think twice.

Nearly 40 years ago, a pack of dogs ran my 7 month pregnant wife 1/2 mile down the street to our home. As soon as I got her settled down, we went and woke the mayor up, and I told him either he solved the stray dog problem or I would. He thought it was pretty funny until dogs (including his and other prominent citizens) started vanishing down a dry well near our home. Guess what! the city decided to hire a dogcatcher. After we moved west, people wrote me for years, thanking me. They could now walk the streets without being bitten, chased, stepping in dog---- on the sidewalks, etc.

Being afraid of your neighbors is a bottomless pit. Respect is only gained when they are either friendly and eager to get along like most of us are, or just a tiny bit afraid of you......Joe