NEWS AND COMMENT: This is a story about the need for dog owners to keep their dogs on a lead in areas where livestock are nearby. And I think, too, it might be linked to rampant dog adoptions during Covid-19 by people who really were not, in the long term, in a position to adopt a dog and neither did they prepare for the adoption properly in understanding dog behaviour. These new dog owners were sometimes unsatisfactory and I think this is an example of that careless dog ownership. It is a tragedy for the farmer and of course for the animals and their mothers.
Nicola Robinson was checking her flock of sheep one morning. She found 28 newborn lambs dead in a stream nearby. They were piled on top of each other. Robinson, who runs Holker Farm in Cark, said: “It was like a lamb pyramid”.
She added that:
“They were trying to get away from a dog and jumped the dyke”.
I’m told by The Sunday Times today, that the cost of insurance payouts of dog attacks on livestock has risen 50% compared to pre-pandemic levels. The information comes from the rural insurance firm, NFU Mutual.
Hannah Binns, NFU Mutual’s role affairs specialist believes that the pandemic led to limited opportunities for puppies to be trained properly. I think she’s referring to the fact that people adopted the puppies often, by the way, illegally imported into the UK from puppy mills on the continent, but were unable to go to a dog behaviourist or dog trainer to help them train their companion animal.
And there was limited opportunity, too, to socialise dogs properly because of the lockdowns. And, as I understand it, dogs from puppy mills abroad are already badly socialised because they not been bred by professional breeders.
Binns added:
“It is concerning that we continue to see so many horrific chases and attacks resulting in large numbers of sheep being killed and a trail of terrible injuries. These attacks not only cause unbearable suffering to farm animals but can also traumatise farmers and their families as they deal with the aftermath.”
In reference to the adoptions during the pandemic, in 2022 there were an estimated 13 million dogs in the UK which represents a rise of 4 million since 2019. This information comes from the Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association.
NFU Mutual paid out £1.8 million to farmers for dog attacks. The biggest increase in payments comes from the North West of England up 66% and the north-east up 44%. Why hasn’t the owner of the dog in question been interviewed by the police and been forced to pay compensation? The Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953 makes it a crime to allow a dog worry livestock? Robinson should sue the dog’s owner if they can be traced.
Dogs can injure lambs and ewes simply by chasing them to exhaustion. They can cause distress in pregnant ewes such that they miscarry or die. And it often separates lambs from their mother.
Robinson said that the lambs’ deaths have cost their business about £45,000 a year in lost revenue and added that “It has been a big setback”.
Robinson and her partner Martin Gott run one of only 40 sheep farm dairies in the UK. It was their dream to make cheese while Robinson has a passion for keeping livestock. The next couple of months is a critical time for them as peak lambing season gets underway.
Their neighbour also had a dog attack last week. A holidaymaker was walking her bulldog off the lead when the dog ran under a gate into a field full of sheep.
Trevor Wilson said:
“The dog chased a pregnant ewe carrying two lambs and it ran terrified and knocked itself out on a wall. It’s no different from a robber chasing an eight-month’ pregnant woman. Imagine the impact on the woman’s health? Or on the baby? Well, it’s the same for a sheep.”
He further added that dogs are bred to chase. That’s what they want to do and if a sheep runs the dog will chase after it. And dogs typically like to corral a flock of sheep into a corner up against a wall where sometimes they get crushed to death.
In the UK, a farmer can shoot a dog under certain restricted conditions namely that they must show that their property was in danger and their actions were reasonable.
Dogs act as if they understand certain human intentions (‘theory of mind’)
