dog-owner

If people love their dogs they will go to whatever it takes to make sure the dogs do not leave their property.

If the dogs leave the property then the onus is on the owner, not the livestock owner. If someone leaves your gate open, its your fault for not padlocking it or leaving your dogs inside a locked kennel instead of a yard that is not really secured.

Too many times I've seen dogs wandering free and I'm sick of being accosted by dogs loose on the street. Its time owners realised that it is THEIR responsibility to keep their dogs in.

And what if someone opens the locked kennel inside the locked yard....do you put the locked kennel inside a locked yard inside the whole back yard??? I mean really, when do you stop?? Am I a bad dog owner because I have to go to work? Am I a bad dog owner because I rent my house? I mean if I owned my own house I wouldnt have been putting my dogs or the chickens in danger because I wouldnt have to worry about unscheduled maintenance by my landlord??

When does it all stop, I would love to see what your reaction would be if you were in the same predicament, its an awful situation - I am grieving for my dogs whilst at the same time, feeling guilty because A) i was at work and couldnt protect them or the chickens B) feeling angry and actually sick when I think of that sign and the garbage bags c) i also am trying to calm the community down because the majority of residents want to know their details and are after revenge

You tell me all the things I have done wrong and how bad an animal owner I am and then you can also tell me how to feel?!

Sorry for the rant, Im just sick of it all, I have to look at that street sign where they were left every time I leave my front door.

Sometimes in life there are incidents that just happen no matter how much you try to protect yourselves and others around you from them....

What a horrible situation.

The idea of someone else leaving doors open etc gives me the heebies. I'm in a rental property at the moment, and it was vacant for some time before we occupied it. Subsequently it's requiring a good deal of maintenance.

The number of tradies that come to the house, let themselves in, and then because they don't want to open and close the front door and screen door while going in and out to the van, they leave my front door wide open, and fix the screen door so it stands open too. Even when I've said to them 'please watch the pets with the front door', they still don't get it. I end up standing guard at the front door while they come and go.

In context, I have a dog and six cats - I always contain the dog when there are tradies or whatever coming to the house. With the cats, however, it's difficult. I can't shut them in a room for the entire day just because tradies might turn up at some point in a six hour window. When they hear the front door, they run and hide, so I can't round them up. It's getting to the point where, when I answer the door, I'm going to have to give the tradies a 'before you work in my house' speech (which, however nice I try to be, may make me look like a fruitcake and rub them up the wrong way).

We werent home at the time our landlord was here and we also didnt know that he was even doing repairs on the house! Hes a man in his eighties, and lives next door too so our tenant/landlord relationship is fairly informal when it comes to "booking in' maintenance work.

catching the dogs - sorry, not always an option, esp if they are riled up already from running around after livestock. And Dog-owner - you say you would have repaid - does that mean that you are still yet to do so, or now have no intention of doing so - whether or not you agree with what occured, your dog still inflicted damage on the farmer, and he is entitled to compensation from you - sorry, agree that whilst the farmer could have handled it a little more tactfully, you were the one in the wrong - your dogs got out, which meant they weren't too securely contained, and went off to cause havoc, which you are responsible for. As someone dealing with the aftermath of a $3000 and rising vet bill for a thoroughbred horse who will now never race, and has the most horrific leg wound from a dog attack (we believe from the neighbours dog that we have issues with, but can't prove it was the one who did it), believe me, if I had the chance to have shot the animal who did that to my horse at the time, you had better believe I would have put a shot into it too.

Linda, we havent been given the chance to do anything, (that was my whole point) - the man that shot the dogs has only come forward to the police and not to us - police have not told us any of his contact details.

As I have already said, I agree with the law of shooting roaming dogs etc - I dont agree with how he did it.

We have guns at our place, we are responsible gun owners and my husband certainly knows how to shoot an animal to quickly and humanely kill it!

I'm sorry for your problems with your horse, I hope you sort it out with your neighbour but my situation is a little different because of the way it was handled, which is the thing i have the problem with. - I wish people would remember that I have never denied that my dogs killed the chooks, and that I have expressed disappointment that my dogs inflicted pain on someone elses animals. I dont agree with comments on here from others saying I should have had them in a locked kennel inside a secure yard, thats bull crap, and some people just seem to adding their opinion just to stir the pot.

oh and I would be charging you for the cost of replacing the chickens and the price of the ammo used to shot the dogs. ;)

charming.

If you read my post at all you would have noticed that I AGREE with the farmers rights, I would have COMPENSATED him for the chickens and also the ammo as you so kindly stated, I DIDNT AGREE with the way it went about.

You have no idea what the sign said, you have no idea how many shots went into the dogs and you have no idea how many times I have actually stuck up for this fellow around this community because the majority of the community wants pay back on him for how he went about it.

I am amazed at some of the comments on forums such as this when the majority of people agree with me about agreeing with his rights but wishing he had done it in a more civilised manner and then i have to read comments such as yours with a little smiley/wink face at the end of a post.

As i said....charming.

They were my dogs that were shot.

Our landlord accidently left the gate open when he was doing some maintenance on the back of our house.

They were securely in their yard apart from this instance.

Our problem is not with the law because we agree with the farmers rights to protect their livestock, but it is with the way it was executed.

We would have been fine (still devastated obviously) with him shooting them CLEANLY on his property and leaving their bodies where they lay (which to my understanding is the law) and contacting relevant authorities. Or he could have contained them, contacted us and we would have compensated him for the chickens and if he insisted on the dogs being destroyed (as is his right and we agree with it) we would have loved the chance to say bye to our dogs and taken them to our local vet to be destroyed that way.

The sign was so distressing and i will not repeat what was written. The media has not been told all the details that were on the sign but it was sick.

At the end of the day, what our dogs did was wrong, we know that - i just hope that our dogs and also the chickens didnt suffer too much.