Shooting dogs worrying sheep

[AL BUNDY 45]

to many would be rambos ,dog owners need to train their dogs .gun owners should know the law.too many ifs and buts people thinking they know.heres one for use to think about. a farmer finds five dead sheep, ripped apart sees three dogs covered in blood kills them all.he was fined £3000 and had to pay costs and lost his gun licence.in my opinion he was entitled to kill them but there you go.

[The_Oakster 2]

Without knowing the full details I can only assume what happened but this highlights what I mean.

 

If he has found dead sheep, seen dogs with blood on and ASSUMED they were responsible and has killed them then he is NOT justified in kiling them because he has no EVIDENCE that they were responsible. It seems to be against what the law is intended for but this is exactly the difficulty there is when people assume that they have the legal right to undertake certain actions.

 

You have to prove you were authorised and justified, that you acted proportionately and with necessity and that goes with all laws. Legal text is black and white but the law is only shades of grey.

[DogMagic 461]

Never mind the legal point of veiw here, are any of you really thick enough to believe that you will get away with shooting someones dog? I can assure you if anyone shot my dog i would be looking for payback in a VERY VERY big way but i certainly wouldnt be involving the police and if other members of your household happened to be in at the time then the whole lot of them would be toast! Think about it! Im far from the only dog owner in the world that would react in such a way. As has been said, i/ we love my/our dogs as if they were our kids. If some c**t shot your kid what would you do? Take them to court? I dont think so.

[zx10mike 137]

hi dog magik

as you can tell from my previous messAGE I'M I BIG DOG LOVER but what we need to respect is that there are idiots who posses dogs as a status symbol and do not give a rats what its up to . i think this is more likely to be the problem, not loved well looked after pets. in leicester there is a deer park that states dogs bothering deer will be shot .and by taking such a stand people make dam sure there dogs behave and idiots do not go there.now if you go down my local park you meet the birstall masive with there killer dogs and hoodies.bieng a dog owner you will know that these dogs are now so messed up that in the wrong hands they are dangerous.i presume these are the kind of idiots we are discussing,not good owners.

[The_Oakster 2]

I don't think that's legal either

[dadioles 68]

Never mind the legal point of veiw here, are any of you really thick enough to believe that you will get away with shooting someones dog? I can assure you if anyone shot my dog i would be looking for payback in a VERY VERY big way but i certainly wouldnt be involving the police and if other members of your household happened to be in at the time then the whole lot of them would be toast! Think about it! Im far from the only dog owner in the world that would react in such a way. As has been said, i/ we love my/our dogs as if they were our kids. If some c**t shot your kid what would you do? Take them to court? I dont think so.

 

Dear DogMagic

 

I hope you enjoy what could become a life prison sentence after taking your revenge on a family for your own irresponsible actions.

 

It seems from reading your post that you would be wise to have a word with your GP and see if an anger management course can be arranged as threatening to murder an entire family by arson is not the sort of thing that a rational person would do.

 

The annoying thing is that as a tax payer I will be providing you with food and accomodation during your lengthy period of imprisonment. The only consolation is that you would be unable to breed during your period of confinememt so that may help prevent any further deterioration of the national gene pool.

 

If you are irresponsible enough to think that it is alright to allow your dogs onto other peoples land and attack or worry their livestock then you should be prohibited from owning dogs in the first place, but sadly there is no legislation to enable that.

 

A landowner has every right to shoot a dog that is attacking his livestock, if he shoots them for any other reason the law is not on his side and the penalties are severe.

 

Try meditation or just slow deep breaths, but do control your dogs, they deserve not to have an abusive owner.

[danw 1,748]

Never mind the legal point of veiw here, are any of you really thick enough to believe that you will get away with shooting someones dog? I can assure you if anyone shot my dog i would be looking for payback in a VERY VERY big way but i certainly wouldnt be involving the police and if other members of your household happened to be in at the time then the whole lot of them would be toast! Think about it! Im far from the only dog owner in the world that would react in such a way. As has been said, i/ we love my/our dogs as if they were our kids. If some c**t shot your kid what would you do? Take them to court? I dont think so.

 

I fully understand your point but it is because you care for your animals in such a way that it is very unlikely that you would ever get into this situation the truth is that most dogs that worry are owned by idiots who think that tiddles will do no wrong and that he is just playing with the sheep and don't see the damage they are inflicting and that just been chased around a field can be disastrous to a pregnant ewe. I would suggest that most/nearly all lurcher lads take the time to stock break and that is why it is rare to hear of a lurcher being shot more likely it will be some townies pet

[DogMagic 461]

Never mind the legal point of veiw here, are any of you really thick enough to believe that you will get away with shooting someones dog? I can assure you if anyone shot my dog i would be looking for payback in a VERY VERY big way but i certainly wouldnt be involving the police and if other members of your household happened to be in at the time then the whole lot of them would be toast! Think about it! Im far from the only dog owner in the world that would react in such a way. As has been said, i/ we love my/our dogs as if they were our kids. If some c**t shot your kid what would you do? Take them to court? I dont think so.

 

Dear DogMagic

 

I hope you enjoy what could become a life prison sentence after taking your revenge on a family for your own irresponsible actions.

 

It seems from reading your post that you would be wise to have a word with your GP and see if an anger management course can be arranged as threatening to murder an entire family by arson is not the sort of thing that a rational person would do.

 

The annoying thing is that as a tax payer I will be providing you with food and accomodation during your lengthy period of imprisonment. The only consolation is that you would be unable to breed during your period of confinememt so that may help prevent any further deterioration of the national gene pool.

 

If you are irresponsible enough to think that it is alright to allow your dogs onto other peoples land and attack or worry their livestock then you should be prohibited from owning dogs in the first place, but sadly there is no legislation to enable that.

 

A landowner has every right to shoot a dog that is attacking his livestock, if he shoots them for any other reason the law is not on his side and the penalties are severe.

 

Try meditation or just slow deep breaths, but do control your dogs, they deserve not to have an abusive owner.

Dear dadioles,

 

You really dont have a clue do you? I didnt say my dogs have attacked ot worried sheep, i did however try to explain to pricks such as yourself that killing someones much loved pet would result in repercussions. His livestock as you put it is exactly that, a pound note that goes "baa". Thats the only thing the farmer cares about is how much he can sell it for. If he is dumb and inbred enough to think everyone feels the same way about their animals too he is in for a rude awakening. You are right, a responsible dog owner will not have his dog out of control or be on private land without permission and if his dog did indeed kill a sheep a responsible dog owner such as myself would approach the farmer and offer to pay for it.

[chimp 299]

so you are saying its ok for dogs just to go around killing livestock ? someones living? someones food ?someones land?

 

someones pet you say , yep just a pet that is out of control.

 

i wouldnt think twice about it if i caught a dog latched on to one of my lambs

[littlefish 549]

I think this means the farmer is in a VERY strong legal position. SHAME on pricks who can't or won't control their dogs!!!!

 

The leaflet is sort of right, the Farmer is legally ALLOWED to shoot the dog but I would doubt that shooting a dog simply because it is in a field will mean that the Farmer is in the right, period. Just because your council has produced a leaflet doesn't mean that its correct

 

Without getting into a legal debate about what the law says in black and white and what would happen in reality, it's fair to say, as I have already mentioned, that a dog can be shot if found worrying livestock but don't expect to shoot a dog, in whatever circumstance and assume that your going to have the full protection of the law behind you.

 

There may be legislation that says you can do it, but there is legislation saying that you can't damage someone else's property as well and these laws are governed by evidence, justification, proportionality and necessity. If you think that if a dog walks into your field full of lambs and you shoot it that the police will just accept it and move on then you are greatly mistaken.

 

 

Do you know this to be true of all areas in the UK?

[dadioles 68]

To Dogmagic once more...

 

Ignoring your insults ("pricks such as yourself"), you clearly stated that if someone shot your dogs you think reasonable retaliation would be to burn down their house killing all of its occupants including their children.

 

You also love your dogs "as if they were kids", well, keep them away from sheep and if you have children, bring them up to be respectful, well educated and tolerant of others.

 

I had a couple of labradors and was sufficiently deeply upset when one of them in particular had to be put down that I have resisted having another dog since, but they were not of equal status to my children or any other human being, and I would not get them into a situation where they risked being lawfully shot.

 

As danw said, I am hope that you are a reasonable dog owner and both love and control your dogs and would never find yourself in a position where they would worry livestock.

 

If, on the other hand, you have a less considerate point of view and don't really care about what your dogs get up to on other peoples land, then they are liable to be shot, and that is entirely your fault for being an irresponsible dog owner. There are plenty of low-lifes who have hunting dogs as status symbols, the same types that use illegal firearms to give their inadequate lives status, they are the product of a broken society - another story.

 

Most farmers, of course there are exceptions, care deeply about their animals and they are not just a cash crop "a pound note that goes baa" as you put it. Your implication that it is sort of ok for your dogs to kill a farmers sheep because if they do you can flash a wad of pound notes at the farmer and he will trot off to the bank happily is a sad reflection on your character and it makes me wonder what sort of life you have had in order to have formed such anti-social views.

Edited April 2, 2011 by dadioles

[The_Oakster 2]

Do you know this to be true of all areas in the UK?

 

The law governing shooting of dogs etc is a national law as are the guidelines that the police use to look into criminal reports.

 

Please don't get confused with what I am trying to explain. The point I am making is that pulling a trigger whilst aimed at a dog COULD be an absolute minefield and to be under the impression that you have the full protection of the law, whatever the situation, is simply not the case.

 

If you are aware of the full ins and outs of what has happened, what could happen and what the outcome could be will allow the average person to make an informed decision and like an adult make a choice. Whether that turns out to be the right one in the eyes of the law is not easy to guess and certainly not something you want to assume.

[CharlieT 32]

The law on shooting dogs is quite specific and shooting a dog leaves the shooter open to a civil claim for damages. It is up to the person who shoots the dog to prove that he did so justifiably and therefore has no claim for damages to answer. There is no right to shoot a dog rather the law states that it is defensible under certain circumstances. As well as being a civil matter the police may treat it as a criminal offense if the dog's owner reports the shooting to the police and makes a complaint.

 

The law states:

 

Worrying livestock is defined as:

 

1.attacking livestock; or

2.causing it injury or suffering or, in the case of females, abortion or loss of, or injury to, their offspring through being chased; or

3.not being on a lead or under close control, in a sheep field or enclosure.

You can shoot any dog worrying livestock if:

 

1.the dog is worrying (see the definition above) or is about to worry the livestock and there are no other reasonable means of ending or preventing the worrying; or

2.the dog has been worrying livestock, has not left the vicinity, and is not under the control of any person and there are no practical means of ascertaining to whom it belongs.

However you must be able to prove that shooting the dog was necessary to protect your livestock and that you reported the incident to the police within 48 hours.

 

Protecting game is rather different. To avoid criminal liability, you have to prove that the shooting of a dog that was worrying game, was taken to protect your own property or your interest in that property. To do this, you need to demonstrate that you honestly believed that, at the time, the game was in immediate need of protection and that, under the circumstances, you used reasonable means.

 

In addition, to avoid civil liability, you will need to prove that the dog was either actually in the process of attacking the animals or, without the intervention, would renew its attack so that the animals would be left in a real and imminent danger.

 

Bearing in mind that shooting dogs should always be the last resort, however if your livestock is being worried, you can take action. However, you need to exercise more caution where game is concerned, as all relevant circumstances will be taken into account to establish if there was an imminent threat.

[dadioles 68]

Do you know this to be true of all areas in the UK?

 

The law governing shooting of dogs etc is a national law as are the guidelines that the police use to look into criminal reports.

 

Please don't get confused with what I am trying to explain. The point I am making is that pulling a trigger whilst aimed at a dog COULD be an absolute minefield and to be under the impression that you have the full protection of the law, whatever the situation, is simply not the case.

 

If you are aware of the full ins and outs of what has happened, what could happen and what the outcome could be will allow the average person to make an informed decision and like an adult make a choice. Whether that turns out to be the right one in the eyes of the law is not easy to guess and certainly not something you want to assume.

 

Spot on Oakster - and CharlieT.

Anyone with a bit of experience of the administration of law and the courts will tell you that "justice" is not what always (often?) happens. Many aspects of the law are rather grey areas and more often than not, even when a case seems black and white, things can be "clouded" in such a way that what a lay person would call justice simply does not happen.

My advice to anyone who finds themselves embroyled in a legal dispute is to employ the services of the best law firm they can find even if it means mortgaging your life away. Big guns beat little guns much of the time. By going in "heavy" the opposition is sometimes cowered into submission before the bills start to add up. That is why the wealthier members of society seem to get away with so much - wrong - unfair - but that is the way it is.

 

Wealthy, well spoken owner of shot dog, nicely dressed, posh address, very expensive lawyer - versus - slightly scruffy, not too good with words, on legal aid smallholder with very junior and inexperienced lawyer.

 

Who would you put your money on to win.

Edited April 2, 2011 by dadioles

[pegleg33 134]

Lets face it, if a dog is on it's own worrying sheep it probably will and deserves being shot.If however it's with it's owner, the ownwer is in for an ear bashing that he well deserve's.Farmers don't want to shoot dogs for the fun of it, they shoot them because it's their lively hood.

My dogs are broken to all livestock and cats, i walk my dogs off the lead everywhere (i take a lead with me if one dog is misbehaving).If however someone decided to shoot one of my dogs that are under my control they better vaseline their gun as i'd ram it that far up their shitter they'd choke on it.

But, responsible dog owners will probably never come across this and only the idiots who have unruly dogs that can't be arsed with putting the effort in training them properly will end up with a dead dog