Was I being overly sensitive? *TW animal death

[alphapie]

So I live in a small Villiage, as a previous city dweller some of the downsides of living in the countryside have taken a while to get used to, such as cows waking us up at 5am, free roaming peacocks destroying our cars paint on the roof and general manure smells every now and again. But after 4 years we are getting there.

Last night a local farmer had 40 lambs killed, he thinks it was a dog attack, instead of just putting a normal post about it on the local FB group (like he and other farmers have before) his son instead decided to share 20 graphic photos of the dead lambs along with the post asking for information or if anyone saw anything.

Now I was pretty upset to be scrolling through FB and to then see images of lambs ripped apart, insides everywhere, pilled on top of each other and commented this on the post. Reminding him that there are teens and young people in the group and it's maybe not the best thing to put on here, to be fair I'd expect many people, adults included would feel upset seeing these images on their FB feed.

I was jumped on by the farmer, other farmers in the village, the 'we've been here for 30 years, go back to the local city if you don't like it' lot and even accused of being the attacker, despite not owning a bloody dog.

I personally also think 40 lambs in one go is unlikely to be a dog attack, but didn't comment that of course.

Was I being unreasonable or overly sensitive to find this shocking and to maybe suggest it's a bit too much to post in a FB group where local children often post looking for summer work or weekend car washing for pocket money? Am I turning into one of those 'think of the children' people!

Even as someone that prefers animals to most people, I certainly don’t know of many people that approach others and threaten to shoot their dogs and imply even worse things for no reason. Only farmer have done that. My dogs have never, ever been off lead other than on my land or friends/families. Too many nutters with guns around my way to risk it.

Do you know this case? Are you local? It is relevant when it makes no sense.

You're very innocent.

Some people deliberately take their big, hard dogs out to go and 'express their natural instincts'. It's how one of the local places lost every single rare breed .

Well, how is anyone supposed to know the details when OP has rightly not posted her location? 🙄

Your reaction of "it's unlikely to be a dog" is very unreasonable. This is exactly what a large dog can do when left loose around sheep. They will also travel long distances on their own to do it.

I wondered if there’d be a news story about this. I think it’s telling that my search page came up with a whole list of separate dog attacks with high numbers of sheep fatalities.

I think the answer to young children not seeing the pictures on Facebook is for parents to not give children who are too young for it Facebook access 🤷🏻‍♀️

Exactly! Imagine you get brutally robbed, and the police just said 'meh you were only going to spend it anyway'.
Are you being open about reporting it to fb @alphapie? Or have you done it covertly?....

@LivingLifeOnTheVeg I was born on a farm and bar university I’ve only ever lived rurally. Farmers aren’t something I really need educating on. Some are arseholes, just like some teachers are, or nurses, or police, or accountants or admin staff.
I’ve never encountered one that would threaten to shoot a dog that’s under control on a lead, but I don’t doubt you because every profession and group of society has ignorant idiots.
But I’ve witnessed the consequences of townie arseholes more times than I care to remember, so when it comes to killing livestock, I’m afraid like anyone with lived experience I’m going to side with the group that are usually the victims, not the usual perpetrators unless there is clear evidence to prove otherwise.
And fwiw the handful of occasions in my life I’ve heard firsthand stories of farmers having to shoot dogs, it’s a last resort and distressing for the farmer. And entirely the fault of whichever twat was supposed to be controlling the dog.

@Vikinga you should probably amend that to a vegan that only eats home grown food. Thinking that they relocate the wildlife from commercial crops, rather than killing it, whether deliberately, accidentally or as a side result is akin to believing we only eat meat from livestock that died of natural causes.

From the timing of it and other details, it’s identifiable to me, the car crash last year, the numbers involved. It’s dodgy and all may not be what it seems. Some farmers are better than others.

@LivingLifeOnTheVeg yes, but my point is that nobody else is going to know unless they're also local to OP and recognise the details.

Dog attacks on sheep happen all the time - people are just responding with their experiences.

If OP thinks the situation is weird or dodgy then she should give more information to support her case 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes you are being wet and over sensitive

My grandparents and uncle farmed, my cousins still do so I’m more than aware too. There’s arseholes in every walk of life and I’m just pro animals so would never say it’s ok to let your dog off lead anywhere near sheep. I’ve seen sheep die and have miscarriages due to it, I’m not defending it. I’m on the animals side, to blindly be on all farmers side is silly when they’re not being responsibly in securing their animals and have an agenda to whip up hatred for certain dog owners. Cases are individual and some are dodgy.

I found a field of sheep after a dog attack. Horrible. They weren’t all dead so the vet had to come and put them out of their misery. Loose dogs gang up together and cause carnage 🥹

When farmers have guns, there’s no harm in being careful what you say, even on here. 😉

@gezelligheid but that’s the result of it happening. The farmer had to see it.

Every time some scum member of the public has made one of my horses ill, or caused an injury, I’m really tempted to laminate graphic images and stick them on the fence next to the do not feed signs. I very nearly did the morning after my then young dc had to watch their pony rolling round the floor in agony and I had to leave them sobbing because I was trying to stop the pony breaking limbs before the vet got there. Kind of fits with one of my early memories too, mutilated livestock is far more distressing in reality.

Dogs can and do kill sheep like this. It really is not uncommon, sometimes there may be two dogs together that have got loose and into a field. There really isn’t much else that will cause this sort of damage to a field of sheep, beside a dog.
I mean, possibly a particularly disturbed human but a dog is far and away the likely culprit, we get attacks like this happening locally all too frequently.

I imagine the farmer is hoping that someone might have an idea whose dog it was and be shocked enough by the images to tell.

So many posts on here scoffing at the op being a 'townie' and having no understanding and insisting that of course anyone local would be fine with the images.

Bollocks.

I live fairly rurally. I'm well used to seeing dead animals (mainly singular) in the lanes and have put a few that were clearly beyond help out of their misery in my time. I'm not particularly squeamish or sensitive.

I have to chase sheep out of my front garden regularly and I live within sight of a working farm...so definitely wouldn't come under the 'townie' bracket.

I've still never seen a pile of dead lambs with innards spilling out in RL or online and I think I'd probably find it a bit much. I can imagine some people would be incredibly upset to be faced, with no warning, with such graphic images when scrolling Facebook.

It's awful for the farmer but 20 graphic images is not necessary.

The repeated posts on here suggesting that all rural dwellers are so frequently faced with dead animals that they're 'used' to this are ludicrous and I suspect are mainly troll types only trying to poke at the op.

People are people. Living rurally doesn't mean you're immune to being upset by horrific images of dead animals 🙄
And whilst I feel for the farmer, fb has community standards - not very well Enforced but still - that these images probably breached.

@LivingLifeOnTheVeg If I exclude dodgy diy yards and townie wannabe smallholders, then I’d say 90% of the animal strayings I’ve ever experienced or heard of are down to members of the public, either wrecking perimeters, leaving gates or scaring animals to the point they are willing to injure themselves escaping. And the remaining 10% include weird and wonderful unpredictable escapes and natural events as well as human failings.

Just because it is distressing in reality it doesn't mean it is okay to post the graphic images. If I'd witnessed something distressing the last thing I would want to do is make other people see a picture of it. Witnessing it in person OR online is sad and horrific.

The farmer could have put his post up with a content warning and posted the pictures in the comments. That's what any sane person would do. Subjecting people to graphic horrifying images to prove a point is weird.

Hearing your anecdotal stories won't change my mind. I agree with the OP.

YABU, sorry. The farmer must have been furious and rightfully so. You're definitely entitled to your opinion though OP, and I'm not saying it's wrong. But I think the horror of the situation trumps your sensitivity on the matter.

Human failings could be one way of putting it I suppose. Sometimes it’s a step further than a failing though. You have to know the circumstances and history sometimes. My family have some very interesting stories of whats happening on farms and times are getting tougher for farmers. Desperation results in all sorts of things so I’m told.

Yeah, you should have just scrolled past. The farmer will be massively out of pocket and rightly upset. There was no need for you to comment on it tbh.

You're right OP. It can't possibly have been a dog that did that.

It will be those weird country folk and their mysterious secrets ...

I don't need to be local to answer the OP's question:

Was I being unreasonable or overly sensitive to find this shocking

The OP didn't ask if we all think the farmer's invented a dog attack for some unfathomable reason of his own. The OP asked if they were unreasonable to report the farmer's post because they didn't like seeing it.

Do you understand the difference? You seem to be struggling with the basics here...

To be clear. I don’t think the dog attack is bs.

i think most of the other shit you’re banging out is bs though