Escaped collies from kennels shot by farmer

[JoanBias]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2221414/Farmer-shoots-collies-dead-escape-boarding-kennels-owners-holiday.html

Why are the owners putting all the blame on the farmer and not on the kennels?

It is the farmer's right to shoot that are worrying his sheep - worrying means chasing, and/or attacking the sheep. My heart goes out to the owners - I know how much we love our dogs and can imagine how we would feel.

Good point, DeathandGlories.

Exactly. Kennels to blame and all very sad. The farmer needs to protect his livestock.

I don't know. It seems that the kennels are to blame. Ok the farmer wasn't very nice (but within his rights) to shoot the dogs, but it would be fairly predictable if you have kennels next to a farm (which I think they very often will be).

Seems he dumped the dogs in the river which is rather off from a hygiene perspective and not very nice either.

But ultimately the dogs were in the care of the kennels so they should pay for ne ones + compensation I should think.

I think the kennels will be arguing that the owners signed a disclaimer allowing the dogs to go off lead, the owners were aware that their dogs could jump and that the kennels had not been negligent in the standard of fencing they had provided - 8-foot was reasonable.

If they had put the world's bounciest dog in there it wouldn't necessarily mean the kennels had done something wrong if the dog escaped.

I am sorry but as awful as it is, the farmer was well within his rights to shoot the dogs as they were worrying his stock.

The kennels are to blame.

The dogs had escaped on a previous visit to the kennels- so the kennels knew they were at risk of escaping.

The fault is with the kennels not the farmer, although dumping their bodies in the brook was out of order.

Somethings not right. They were obviously unsupervised during excersise for them going missing not be noticed for 20 minutes?

A dread to think what a bored bouncy collies could get upto in 5 minutes, let alone well over 20 minutes left unsupervised

Why did they send the dogs back there when they knew they had escaped before?

They may have be in lamb, some farms do autumn lambing. By the by of course

It is the kennels fault. But how vile must you be to do that

Sounds like the kennels left them unsupervised knowing they could jump the fence. Which is a bit daft. If they'd been supervised I bet they wouldn't have gone over the fence. They have needed to have been exercised off lead as a collie only been exercised on a lead for 4 weeks would go a bit batty. Maybe ok if they were long walks but that's not going to happen at a kennels. Poor dogs.

Viva
That's what's made me . They knew the dogs could scale the fence and they knew the dogs had good recall. They simply can't have been supervised.

I'm sure the owners thought the dogs would be well looked after and safe even if they could scale the fence. I do think the kennels are at fault.

Dogs don't need to be attacking sheep to kill them. A strange dog trying to herd sheep up will panic them, they could die from the stress or miscarry if pregnant.

The poor owner was on Radio 2 with the kennels owner. Horrible discussion, although he kept great dignity, I thought.

How unbearable.

The fences were only 4 foot according to that article. Nowhere near sufficient. I'd be seeking compensation from the kennels if I was the owner.

I partly think the owners are to blame though for allowing their dogs to be walked off lead, next to a field of sheep, when they knew the field wasn't secure. If I was going to leave my dogs for a month, I'd be looking for facilities with a hydrotherapy pool or similar so that they could exercise safely.

It's obviously terribly sad, but I don't know very many people who would leave their dogs in kennels for a month unless they absolutely had to. I hope it is because they knew that the dogs were very happy there.

If the dogs really were chasing/worrying the sheep then the farmer may have felt no option but to shoot them, and was legally within their rights to do so. I'm not quite sure how the owners 'know' that they posed no threat at all. We had a very very well trained collie who 99% of the time ignored sheep, but every now and then you could see his instincts come into play when he saw a lone sheep and he'd go all slinky and have to be called back sharpish. We thought that he just wanted them all in a nice neat pack, but apparently some dogs attack lone sheep so it might as easily have been that.

Farmers near us had to shoot a couple of dogs once, again someone's pets. From what I remember they lost a number of sheep from shock because the dogs had gone a bit manic and chased them about a fair bit. A quick google shows that it's not particularly unusual. Also I wonder how much attention the dogs were getting - collies get bored and stressed very easily, and both of the dogs were young, one really just a puppy really.

A four foot fence does not make a secure field. We had to prove we had at least a five foot fence around our yard before we were allowed to adopt our puppy, and that's the height of the fence at our local dog park too. I'm surprised a large kennel (from the picture it looked lot a lot of cages) didn't invest in better fencing really, especially as they knew that some dogs could and woudl jump its I'm sure it came as a truly horrible surprise to both kennel manager and owners but it was preventable.

From what I've read the owners think because that are border collies they don't worry just herd instinctively! Which is madness. I still fail to understand why you send dogs back to somewhere that you know they have escaped from before although that doesn't detract from the kennel being at fault for not supervising them properly. All the people I know who have second homes in France and Spain always take their dogs with them .

The owners are deluded if they think that just by virtue of their breed a collie won't worry sheep. Collies are dogs first and collies second. Sheep dogs are trained dogs, yes they do have a stong herding instinct, but they aren't born sheep dogs. Even a trained sheep dog can go bad.

My friend's father was a farmer. He shot her dog for worrying his sheep. That is his own daughter's dog . She was very resigned and accepting of it.

Maybe the farmer was a bit trigger happy, it's very difficult to judge without being there. If he saw strange dogs running in with the sheep then he may have shoT first, but then it isn't his responsibility to regain control of the dogs. There's a farmer near me that frequently threatens to shoot my dogs, even when there's no livestock and my dogs are on the lead.

Things that strike me as odd are that the farmer who shot the dogs didn't own he sheep (I think I've got that right) and that the owners don't seem to be holding the kennels responsible. I would place 75% of the blame on the kennel, 20% on the farmer and the rest with the owners.

I would have thought that passports for the dogs would be cheaper than the kennel fees.

Ultimately, I feel very sad for the dogs.

The eldest dog was travel sick, which is why they left them in kennels. The owner, on the radio, was blaming the kennels - on two counts. One, that despite the disclaimer re. lead walking, if the dogs had got over the fence, the kennels should have lead walked them. Two, that the eldest dog (3) couldn't jump fences, at all, and the two dogs were inseparable...so how did he get into the field?

The kennel owner, on the radio, was blaming the farmer, saying that the farmer had returned and warned other dog owners about their dogs many times, but just shot those dogs.