Aibu to think I should be ok to exercise my well behaved dog wherever I like in fields

[Scrowy]

I'm not BU because my dog is a farm dog and the fields are my fields.

Sadly however the local dog owners seem to think that our fields (some with footpaths, some without) are fair game and that they have an equal right to use them as they see fit.

This week we have politely asked 6 people with loose dogs to remove themselves from the pasture we have just separated some lambs into. There is no footpath in that field but it has a nice view.

During lambing time this year we lost 4 lambs and 1 sheep to sheep worrying. About 5 years ago one dog killed 24 lambs in one go. Every week we are aware of minor incidents of sheep worrying, fortunatly most don't result in death but do always result in stress on the animals.

Also this week we have sent some older sheep to slaughter. Out of 30 of them 24 of them were condemned due to Echinococcosis, a disease passed on to sheep from dog poo and only identifiable at slaughter.

Neosporosis is another disease passed on from dog poo do cattle. It causes the cattle to abort their calves.

Letting your dogs poo on farmland is directly putting farms out of business.

Letting your dogs 'play' with sheep causes death, even if your dog doesn't actually maul something at the time.

You wouldn't walk into a shop, knock down a display and break stuff without expecting to have to pay for damages. Why do people think that the countryside is fair game?

I'm all for live and let live, I want people to enjoy the countryside and support it. I also want people to realise that it's not just there for their amusement, that some people are trying to make (an increasingly small and desperate) living from it.

Lol at 'vegans wielding scythes'

I'm constantly amazed at the idiocy of some walkers with dogs. Including the one allowing their dog to chase sheep on a Fell such as you describe, OP. We stopped to tell them it was illegal and dangerous. They told us to fuck off

I think HM. GOV. UK has a little more say over Common Land meanings than does Wikipedia or do farmers pick and choose the rules?

Common land is owned, eg by a local council, privately or by the National Trust.
You usually have the right to roam on it. This means you can use it for certain activities like walking and climbing.
.... If you own common land
The management of common land must take into account the interests of both the owner and the ‘commoners’ (people who have rights over the land but don’t own it).

Key bit there is the 'interests of the land users'. I.e. the right not to have livestoack harmed.

As I said, continue to support farmers to use common land for increasing their profits and filling up the countryside with animals waiting to be slaughtered and our future generations will lose any enjoyment of our (diminishing) Green Spaces.

As for those of you so quick to give up common land to profit-making farmer; shame on you for letting down our future generations and their enjoyment of green spaces.

You really are a prize numpty. The common land doesn't belong to the general public. It comes from collective farming under the feudal system. Even in the Middle Ages, it belonged to the crown/lord of the manor. Are you addressing your ancestors perhaps??

If those areas aren't farmed they will probably be built on. The minor inconvenience of me having to abandon a walk because there are bullocks in a field with a ROW is nothing compared to that.
I do know they are going to be slaughtered, bold not necessary. Until they are they deserve not to be chased, frightened or bitten by dogs owned by twats.

Nope still don't see anything in the HM government version that says it's put there for people to walk their dogs on, use as a dog toilet or allow their dogs to chase sheep on.

It's pretty clear that whilst people have rights to walk over it (which I have pointed out on this thread and never disputed) that ultimately it is an ancient old working environment and should be treated with respect by those who choose to access it.

But thanks for actually going and reading up on it! Impressed

YANBU. My dogs are always on lead near livestock in case they spook them. I hate it when people let their dogs leg it into crop fields too. Mine know to stay to the path, the youngest is a bit less reliable in her current rebellious phase so she spends lots of her life on a flexi lead to reinstill the boundaries. I can't believe the audacity of people to let their dogs roam like that off a footpath especially with livestock about. Even if a dog is well behaved it doesn't mean livestock won't be startled or nervous of them.

Oh dear counterpoint, you really are showing your ignorance now

As I said, continue to support farmers to use common land for increasing their profits and filling up the countryside with animals waiting to be slaughtered and our future generations will lose any enjoyment of our (diminishing) Green Spaces.

1. We make virtually no profit, and the tiny amount of profit upland hill farmers make is being further depleted by people who won't pick up after their dogs.

1. The countryside has never been emptier of sheep than it is currently. Virtually every upland farmer has reduced stocking rates on the fells over the last 20 years.

1. The land would not be green and pleasant without sheep. Sheep nibble down the bracken and heather. Without this happening it would become overgrown and unusable within a very short space of time.

1. Most of the sheep on the fells are breeding sheep. They are not 'waiting for slaughter', however when they come to the end of their natural lives they go to slaughter, can you imagine the uproar if we just left them to die all over the fells, it definitely wouldn't be green and pleasant then!

Have you ever actually been to Farm? Spoken to a farmer? Asked questions?

Re shooting dogs, at the end of the day it's the owner being a twat and I couldn't live with myself if I shot an (admittedly nuisance) dog when it was solely down to the owner that the dog was there. That's like punishing a child for not knowing better when they've grown up with shit parents, hardly something you can condone, surely?

Some fields it's hard to know which way is the public footpath because the arrows don't always make it clear which side of a dyke you can go down etc so I daresay I've gone down the wrong bit before, but mine are under control and stick to the paths. Where I lived before farmers often used to block off public footpaths so you couldn't even follow the well trodden route because you knew it probably wasn't the footpath because the farmer had blocked that. Situations like that make it increasingly hard to know which way is the 'right' way to go.

We're arable farmers, it is the bane of our lives with dog walkers and some horse riders at this time of year when a lot of stubble is left fallow for spring cropping.

Whenever you stop them, the response is "we're not doing any harm". Last week it was over some wheat land we had min tilled and DD into OSR so actually they were doing a fuck tonne of damage but far too stupid to understand the concept of DD. Usually it's knocking game birds out of covers, climbing over fences, pushing holes in hedges etc.

I wonder what their response would be if I took my own dogs into their gardens.

Why should your money-making ventures as a farmer who grows and slaughters innocent animals have precedence over the rest of the population out for a walk with or without their pet?

it's THEIR land and THEIR property. Not yours to wonder over because 'I has rights and they kill the sheeps anyway innit'.

Do ve careful with the electric fence scrowy. Friends farmowners had electric fence to keep their sheep from taking themselves for a walk. It got took down in the end because of complaints.

Oh those pesky Dogs stopping you from profiteering from the slaughter of innocent lambs. Oh how I'd of loved to see the look on your face when you found out that 83% of the lambs you sent off to have their throats slit were 'condemned' due to dog shit they'd been eating on common land.

The management of common land must take into account the interests of both the owner and the ‘commoners’ (people who have rights over the land but don’t own it).

I think you are misunderstanding the usage of the term 'commoners' here, there are 2 meanings. In this case (as noted above) it means people who have rights over the land but don't own it. That's a completely different thing from "any Tom, Dick or Harriet who feels like it" i.e. the common people.

Have a look Here for a much more detailed explanation.

3. The land would not be green and pleasant without sheep. Sheep nibble down the bracken and heather. Without this happening it would become overgrown and unusable within a very short space of time.

Not actually true, sheep aren't the only animals that eat bracken. I live in the new forest, there's no free range sheep in my area and there's no problem with overgrown bracken.

Could you put a cow that has large horns in with the sheep to make people think it's a bull and avoid the field?

It sounds a bit random but would you consider getting a llama or alpaca (neutered)? I understand that they are great guard animals and will happily chase off any foxes or dogs that are upsetting the sheep.

Although perhaps then people will be more likely to come because they want to look at the unusual creatures.

I suggest a big sign that says 'please no dogs, Echinococcosis in area' and an ambiguous picture of a dead animal that could be a sheep or a dog

our future generations will lose any enjoyment of our (diminishing) Green Spaces

This is a common myth. According to this report (based on the ONS), most of the UK is non-urban. Around 78%

^SarahVegan* since when do slaughter practices other than Halal involve an animal having their throat slit?

What I don't understand about the gleeful vegan types is that they seem happy for livestock to be harmed. Way to stick it to those narsty farmers, eh?

It happens at wildlife reserves too. And to sheep farmers with a No Kill flock (wool producers). Do these numpties have a list of farmland where it's not ok by their screwed up little code to let their dogs distress or kill animals?

And saucery they seem to have no problem keeping animals enslaved as "pets" which is far more unnatural (and anthropomorphic) than farming.

What I don't understand about the gleeful vegan types is that they seem happy for livestock to be harmed

Odd isn't it saucery. Imagine being gleeful that the animals died in a completely different way.

You're also putting your own dog in danger. Of being shot, butted, kicked or trampled. To make some stupid-ass Point in the false belief that you can walk where you want, when you want.
Our local country park is in the process of putting severe restrictions on use by dog walkers, because of idiots who won't pick up their dog's shit and won't stop them breaching fences to chase sheep. . Cheers, fuckwits.

SarahVegan

Your attitude is even more disgusting than the average meat eater. You actually are gleeful the sheep are ill and suffering.

Perhaps you should stop eating crops as well. Each ploughed field is done on the blood of earth dwelling animals such as rabbits, moles, mice and voles as well as removing the natural habitat for countless other mammals, which then are unable to survive.