can i trust my dog now ? i have 2 gSDs who for the last 2 years have been around sheep, without any problems. to my horror, i arrived home last night to find 3 of my pet sheep bitten all over, and one dead and half eaten. is there any truth to "once a killer always a killer" and can i trust my dogs again around animals and children ? any advice anyone can give me would be appreaciated - as i dont know what to do. thankyou
e-mail dogstar2003@aol.com

How did your dogs get to your sheep - are they kept outside ?
How old are they ?
Poor sheep :(
Lel

Hi Guest

Sorry to hear about your sheep.:( Are you absolutley positive that it was your dogs?
I don't know what to suggest. What a worrying thing to happen.

Ali

PS If you register you can reply back on this thread and hopefully someone more experienced can advise you.

hello, i have registered now, thank you for your replies, in response - both my dogs live outside ( please dont think thats cruel, i love all my pets) and they usually have free run, of a very large garden, except when im out, and i put them into there pen (40x15foot !) which is surrounded be a 4ft fence, they have never got out before, even tho they could if they wanted to. and they have never bothered the sheep in the paddock next door,

ps the dogs ages are 7 & 6 1/2. and yes , unfortunatly all the evidence points at my dogs. if anyone has any experience of this, i would be very grateful. thankyou

Hi,
I am really sorry to hear of your incident & have just been on the phone to a friend of mine who is a farmer & he says if they have killed or even tackled your sheep then it is very likely they will do it again he said if it was his dogs he'd have them put to sleep-but they are your family pets & its unlikely that they would have a go at you but to be on the safe side & not have to have this situation again i would suggest keeping them in an enclosed kennel/pen so that they can't jump over or get out anywhere.
Hope you can sort this one out
Jenny.

I had a german shepard a long time ago who did exactly the same to quite a few sheep but unfortuatly she killed most of them. She was a lovely family pet and this was the first and only time she did anything like this. We used to live near a farm and one night she got out and went mad on the sheep, she was like a wild animal howling thats how we knew what she was doing and managed to get her back in but a bit too late. She was a good dog and never showed any aggression towards anyone before and after this as she grew up with me from a baby. She went on to live till she was 15 years old with no other problems like that. I can only speak from my experience but we were able to trust her after, in fact their wasn't really any doubt about it after but we did trust her. She lived on for many years after this without any other problems.

Thank you all for your replies & emails - if anyone has more advice/experience, please leave a posting as I am still struggling with what to do.

I need to ask "madbullytaz" did your dog ever 'get out' again, or did she live out the rest of her days, without any contact with livestock. As a smallholder i do have other animals, and have to take that into consideration. thankyou

chris

Hello chris,
In reply to your question my german shepard did live out the rest of her days without any contact with livestock, but she still lived with cats and another dog with no problem. I know you can't really compare dogs and cats to livestock but it just seemed like a one off situation. Where we lived before we used to walk her through a field of cows and she never made any attempt to hurt them and when I went horse riding she used to come and run along side of the horses with no problems. I don't really understand why she hurt these sheep as she was always a lovely dog. At the end of the day only you can decide if you can trust your dogs again but I personally wouldn't go as far as having them pts, hope this helps...................cindy

Can you trust them?
Almost certainly they will kill sheep again, if they get the chance.
By the same token, they will PROBABLY still be friendly family pets.
The majority of 'sheep killers' are ordinary family 'house dogs'.
We've had Labradors, Spaniels, GSD's, Jack Russells, Poodles - they all do it.
Can you afford to take that risk??
Do a lot of heart searching.
If the answer is NO, then you only have 1 choice.........sorry

Hi,

Sorry to hear of your problem. I've had the same problem too, and I live in the country.

One of my GSD's 'sniffed' a sheep & off he went after it. When we caught him he had rounded up about 4 and didn't harm them but just held them in a corner.

The next time, not so lucky, he got a taste of blood.

I took advice from a behavourist who said once they have the taste it is almost impossible to cure. It was suggested the use of electric collars but I didn't fancy that.

Now, he doesn't go out alone, and is kept tethered on a long leash if I am not around.

Incidentally, he has a wonderful temperament with my kids & other dogs & would never harm them.

As someone else said, you have to look at the practical side of this & come to your own decision.

Hope things work out for you,

Nicola

Maybe this is too simple an answer, but would it not be possible to keep your dogs but no more sheep? And to make ABSOLUTLEY sure they can't ever escape again, I am sure they will not turn on you because they turned on your sheep, its totally different, hopefully they see you as pack leader, whereas the poor sheep were obviously prey, I daresay they didnt bother them at all while they were with you as they would be looking always to you to make any first moves - but while the alpha was away they had no guidance and instinct just took over.
However, if they do snap at your or your family, even once, I think you would then have to make the hard decision, but for now, I would say give them another chance. Hope this helps, my heart goes out to you as it must have been such a horrible sight to see.

Many years ago we had a rescue GSP who did exactly the same thing. She was a real escape artist, and we know she killed two sheep and three chickens (seperate incidents), and we could never trust her at all around livestock, even though there was never a problem with the cats, our other dog, or people (I was 13, my sister was 11 at the time, and we were regularly visited by a friend with a five year old son, she never showed any hint of dominance or agression towards people). The most difficult thing for us was keeping her in, she could easily scale the fence around her run (we had 7 foot of pig netting, buried a foot in the ground), we stopped that for a while by putting a wire roof over the top, but then she found that if she tried hard enough, she could actually chew through the wire. My mother was well aware that the dog would be shot if she was seen out.
Can you make your run escape proof? I would give them another chance as long as they are OK towards you and your family, but it seems that the experience of most people here suggests that you won't be able to trust them around your stock.

I would suggest you can trust your dogs in the sense that, just because a dog attacks a sheep it doesn't mean it will attach an adult human or child.....the motives are different.

However it is certain that it would not be a good idea to trust them around livestock, unless they are all family pets together.

My advice would be to look at your whole situation, and "manage" the problem by totally ensuring the dogs cannot get at any sheep. This means i would say, either a totally covered run (mesh or wire) or else, a higher fence with jackal fencing - this comes in at the top at about 45% and is pretty impossible for a dog to get "up, back and over" it.

best wishes
Lindsay

What a dreadful position to be in, I feel for you.

It seems you do have a hard choice to make here,in order to protect the sheep from the dogs and the dogs from themselves (I know its hard to remember this sometimes, but we do need to remember exactly how strong a dogs prey (natural)instinct can be - however loving & good tempered they are to other domestic pets/humans. I don't see how you can torture either the dogs by having prey at such close quarters after this event nor indeed the sheep so close to potential/probable predators, after their trauma, someone's going to suffer either way and you will be worried about "what if the dogs get out" everytime you leave.

I don't feel the dogs deserve to be pts, after all they only did what their instinct demanded in your absence and it is very unlikely there will be any aggression towards children or other dogs etc, but I do feel it would be quite stressful for the sheep to live there now.

Is there any way a choice can be made between the dogs or the sheep- personal preferences aside, I know the majority of people on this board would immediately think " sheep can go" (I would for example) as I wouldn't allow my ( hound) to be so near to an animal she believes she needs to hunt, by the same token , couldn't stand to have sheep worrying all the time, but then I don't know anything about sheep, only dogs and I don't know what it feels like to have competing priorities with different animals.

I think there is only one way to approach this, what arrangement is in the very best interests of both sets of animals and not what you necessarily would want.

I am sorry, I dont think that actually helps any, I just wanted to look at it slightly differently. Good Luck to you and I hope the sheep that have been hurt recover.

(just realised that this might come across as dogs killing sheep is okay as it is their "natural instinct" and therefore it is not their fault etc - which is not what I am saying - hope thats clear!

I would like to thank you all so very much for all your kind replies.

Your comments and experiences have been a great help, and a comfort to know that i am not alone.

This community on the internet, is an example to all, as are all its members (of which i am now one !)

I have become a regular visitor now, and hope that I will be able to help someone else in need of answers, as you all have helped me.

Once again THANKYOU !!!

Chris