Is it cruel to have working dogs?

[williesandwonkas]

I have name changed as I know how people get about animals and I have also seen a thread about dog walking which has provoked this question.

We own a massive sheep farm and have 7 dogs that work alongside us. These are pure working dogs. We do not consider them pets but, they are obviously treated very very well (best vet/best food). From the second we get up in the morning they are expected to work. Like any asset and the way of the farming life stipulates that if they don't and don't provide a benefit they need to be replaced.

I wonder how people perceive working animals compared to pet dogs? Our only friends are farming friends and seeing other people with pet dogs raises questions as to what people think about our situation.

I have no issue with working dogs, a work friend has 5 and they are very happy. The oldest though has become a house dog now, she still rules the others but comes indoor rather than kennels for bad weather due to her age. I love working dogs as long as the older ones are treated as retired and respected elders and given the care they require

We have a bearded collie, from working lines. We bought him from a farmer. The other two pups in the litter had been sold to other sheep farmers.
His working instincts are very strong. He needs about 3 hours exercise daily or he is unmanageable - starts destroying the house. I work from home so he's never on his own. He's smart as a whip.

He's a great dog but even DH says he should be on a farm with a job to do. I didn't realise the difference between working lines and purely pet bred dogs until we'd bought him.

Agree entirely that working dogs are treated as an extremely valuable member of staff. Very well looked after but in a different way than a pet dog.

Some of my family have working dogs and the dogs are so happy. They get loads of exercise. But if the dog was not working properly, it would've turned into a pet or given to a good family as a pet. It is a living breathing thing after all,not a piece of machinery.

My working collie is upside down on the sofa fast asleep at the moment :D Yes, he does pong a bit, but his mother was a working dog and the family pet (all the others at that farm lived in kennels, but she was the house dog). I know the moment I shut my laptop he'll flip himself upright and be at my feet with his 'LET'S GO!!!' face on.

We also have a cocker spaniel who doesn't work, but she ignores sheep, so she comes out with us and spends the time happily snuffling through the undergrowth. As long as we tire her nose out each day, she's content with life (and has reached middle age at 7, so is finally slowing down a bit!)

The farm near me has, I think, 11 collies and huntaways at the moment, and they all stay on the farm for retirement.

I know a family who have an Aussie shepherd as a pet. The dog has never been properly trained, is often left alone in the house for hours and doesn't get enough exercise. The poor thing is bored out of his mind! And his owners get upset when he chews up everything in sight...

Yes keeping working breeds as pets, unless you understand and meet their needs, is cruel.

I think those dogs are very lucky. Shelters are full of dogs that people have given up and passed around because they can't meet their needs

I sometimes walk my dog with the local farmer when he walks his. He has a working dog and two pet dogs. He always walks his two pets, his border collie sometimes tags along or is taken when he is checking on his sheep. There is definitely a distinction between the three, his pets sleep indoors the border collie doesn't.
They all appear to be lovely happy dogs though. They make me smile because the border collie responds to his every whistle where his pets take not a blind bit of notice if they are in that mood.
I think it's far more cruel to own dogs that need the stimulation of a working life and keep them as pets walked round the block twice a day.

boilersontheblink My working cocker is moved onto the least nutritious food (and cheaper, bonus!) I can find as soon as the season is over and he's not doing 2-4 days work a week. And I cut back on the walking. It's a counter intuitive regime for a manic bundle of energy, but really, a young cocker spaniel at peak physical fitness is a hard thing to live with! (He is an indoor/coming-to-potter-round-at-work-all-day pet the rest of the time.) To make up for this, we step up the training and dog puzzles. It seems like making his brain work uses more energy than exercise, certainly he is a lot calmer when he's had to think about something.

It's cruel to have a working dog and not work them!

As long as they have somewhere warm and comfortable to sleep, I think they're very lucky.

Last year DH and I stayed on a najavo Native American farm in Arizona. They had Pyrenees mountain dogs which slept most of the day when it was hot and worked throughout the night protecting the sheep from cayotes and whatever else might be a threat. It was amazing to watch. DH and I were sat out star gazing one night and heard a faint sound of a bell ringing - no light pollution so you could see fuck all but all of a sudden these huge white dogs appeared beside us - sat for a bit with us but were constantly on alert for danger in the darkness. After a while they wandered off, disappearing into the night. I’ve never felt safer, it was amazing. In the early hours of the morning as the sun was starting to rise I heard the bells again so went out to watch and the owner was having bother with some naughty sheep that had gone awol. The dogs were running across the plains in search of them and half hour later we saw the sheep appearing in the distance with the dogs behind them. I’ll never forget it.

It depends. As with all animals it depends on the life they have and how suited it is to their needs. I have seen many, happy working dogs, bred for a purpose and happily carrying out that purpose, but that is not the case with every dog.

In the country I was born and the country I live at many hunting dogs are treated appallingly. They are kept in tiny kennels or even cages, allowed out for limited months during the year and dumped it they don’t do they job. ‘Guard’ dogs are kept chained up all day and left on their own all night. These practices are, luckily, not common in the U.K.

I’m from a farming background and agree that working dogs are happiest working. My Dad’s 2 dogs are so excited to see him every morning and follow him everywhere he goes. The poster who described that adoring look is so right - they would do anything for him. However, not for anyone else as we found out last year when my Dad ended up in hospital. One if the dogs refused to work for us and slunk back to her bed, miserable that my Dad was not there. So although they are not allowed in the house, they are happy, content and love their lives.

At the end of their lives they will slow down and be allowed to just hang about the farm until they die. They are working dogs but also part of the family.

I know someone who trained their jrt for when they go hunting (I do not know the ins and outs but I'm sure it's not for fox hunting it's a jrt not a hound)

As hunting is their hobby you could say their dog is only a part time worker, when not working it's a pet. A well trained well behaved pet.

Working dogs (I assume collies) live to work. I have a pet one and he has "jobs" mostly self appointed! like guarding the neighbours chickens. You need to meet their needs, beyond that, collies know their own mind, they do want they want to do so they are obviously happy with their life!

I grew up around working dogs, my granddad worked on a big estate as a gamekeeper and always had springer spaniels and labradors.

They were extremely well treated and well looked after but they were most definitely not pets. They slept outside in the barn and weren't allowed in the house. We weren't encourage to play with them. When they got too old to work they were retired to someone else locally - and as they were SO well trained there was never any problem finding them a home.

There's not really such a thing as working cats though, is there?

PS my collie does like creature comforts, not sure he would go for living in a barn, he's rather keen on his dog bed with memory foam mattress or our sofa! He's a dab hand at fetching people though

Working dogs are so much ‘luckier’, it’s the poor dogs who never go venture outside I feel sorry for or the ones who’s owners work all day and don’t even hire a dog walker.

Working dogs can still be treated as pets. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

I used to work on rural Welsh farms and some working dogs were chained up to posts or a kennel or in a dark shed, with no bedding to speak of. I saw some kept in small cages too. They were shut away like that, often surrounded by filth and faeces, just let out when needed for working and then shoved back in and forgotten about. It wasn't every farm, but a significant number and those dogs were not well treated, never heard a kindly word or had something soft to lie on and many were very fearful. It's down to their day to day treatment and their basic needs being met imo.

On one farm, I asked the farmer if I could take away a tiny emaciated and extremely ill collie. He had sought no treatment at all for her and she was in a ramshackle cage, outside in frosty February, standing on a grid, with bits of dead lamb to eat. She was with us for eight years and the most brilliant dog. Many working dogs are not treated kindly.

@BertrandRussell Many greyhounds retire at the age of 3-5. Should they be put down as well?

You clearly haven’t a clue drogo. No point even trying to explain to you.

Well it looks like most people on this thread have known farm dogs to live out their elderly life on the farm. I also know a few farmers (we live quite rurally) that don't dispose of their dogs as soon as they're not fit for the job anymore. So I'm not sure how I "don't have a clue". It's really not the norm for dogs to be PTS when they can no longer work, unless it's because of illness.

I think working dogs with good food and accomodation have a far more ethical life than the vast majority of pet dogs tbh.