[Ag-eq] The BlanchRanch Bulletin

Sat Feb 17 15:21:08 UTC 2018

With Behavior like that Jewel, I don't think you were being abusive
using that rod at all.  What if during the attack on the sheep, with
you being right there on top of the ewe and G, his attack rush caught
you as well?  I have put two dogs down for being aggressive and
nothing could curb the behavior and no shelter or rescue group would
take them because of the aggression to people.  You may have to draw
the proverbiel  line in the sand and if G's behavior crosses it then
it is time for him to go.  I know that his killing has been to your
own sheep, which is bad enough, but what if he did that much damage to
one or more of your neighbors.  They may end up shooting him
themselves.

Susan
dogwoodfarm62 at gmail.com

On 2/17/18, Nella Foster via Ag-eq <ag-eq at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> Jewel you are a much more patient and tolerant person than me.  I'm afraid
> a
> dog of mine would not live past the first animal it killed.  I love dogs,
> but I'm also a practical farm girl.
>
> Nella
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ag-eq [mailto:ag-eq-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jewel via Ag-eq
> Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2018 3:09 AM
> To: blindlikeme at yahoogroups.com; Agricultural and Equestrean Division List;
> gwila47 at hotmail.com; bostonbevy at hotmail.com; Sally Coutts
> Cc: Jewel
> Subject: [Ag-eq] The BlanchRanch Bulletin
>
> As the readers of this series may remember, two years ago, my dog Guideon
> lost his marbles and started killing my lambs.
>
> How he was getting out of the yard I did not know and I received no
> definitive help from sighted people that would lead to
>
> my solving the problem, Suffice it to say, over a period of 3 months, he
> killed 8 of my lambs;
> Fortunately:  a very poor
>
> choice of word and if I could think of another I would use it:  they were *
> my lambs, and not my neighbours, which they,
>
> very well, could have been as there is only a plain, unelectrified, sheep
> netting fence between my flock and his.
> Not before time, I contacted the vets and they said that one of their staff
> would come over and see if she could spot where
>
> the weakness was.  By observing Guideon's behaviour and witnessing that his
> attention was concentrated on one particular
>
> gate, she concluded that this was the most likely place where Guideon was
> getting out.
> I was not in a position to, physically, replace the gate, so I pulled up
> one
> of the six-foot gates that I had from the old
>
> dogruns that had been pulled down when the new sheds were put up.  I leaned
> this gate against the existing suspect one so
>
> that it provided an overhang on Guideon's side, and, sure enough, his
> escapes came to an end, until, that is, the day came
>
> when I was working in the paddock where the lean-to was, and needeng a tool
> from the backyard, pushed the overhang aside,
>
> got the tool and pulld the overhang back into place.
> However, all this pushing and pulling had been noted by my
> super-intelligent
> dog and it had provided him with all the
>
> logistical information that he needed, so, without my having moved more
> than
> 5 feet from the gate, he had pushed it aside,
>
> and was over and gone.
> Past experience had proved,  beyond measure, that when he was in one of
> these killing frenzies, without batting an eye,  he
>
> would tear into a sheep that was right in front of me, but as long as I
> couldn't get hold of him there was nothing that I
>
> could do, and getting hold of him was something that he took good care to
> see didn't happen.
> All the shouting in the world fell onto deaf ears.
> The final straw came when David, my nextdoor sheep-owning neighbour,  saw
> Guideon attack and tear to bits one of my lambs,
>
> and he, quite rightly, fearing for the continued wellbeing of his own
> sheep,
> demanded that the dog be shot.
> Believe me, readers, during these dreadful months, eight times, I had been
> on the verge of having Guideon killed but each
>
> time I reminded myself that, without his invaluable assistance, in so many
> other respects, leading the life that I do would
>
> be, quite, impossible.
>
> In a last ditch hope of forestalling an official order that the dog be
> destroyed, Evan and Owen, my two brothers, came from
>
> their homes in Central Otago and, using the panels and gates that had
> formed
> my old dogruns,  put up fences that even an
>
> agile dog such as Guideon could, no longer, jump or clamber over.  Provided
> the gates were always kept securely fastened,
>
> with the exception of a couple of hiccups:  more of that in a moment:  ,
> Guideon's unwonted escapes have been brought to an
>
> end.
> Part 2:  THE   HICCUPS.
>
> Warning:  Hiccup #1 contains some * actions, on my part, which may cause
> some readers to judge me as being unfit to own
>
> dogs, but it was Guideon's * actions that gave me no alternative but to do
> what I
>
> did.---------------------------------------
>
>
>
> In August of last year, 2017, one of my ewes tried to hurdle a fence, but
> her attempt was unsuccessful when one of her hind
>
> legs passed between the 2 top wires and she was left, dangling.
> I do not know how long she was in this predicament, but as she was in  full
> view of  any motorist passing on the road and
>
> noone came in and told me of her plight, I assume that it was, probablly,
> overnight.
> When I got her out of the fence, she was not a very happy sheep;  the
> hindleg that had been caught was dislocated at the
>
> hip and the wire had cut, deeply into the fetlock joint.
> My neighbour was able to reposition the dislocated hip joint, but I called
> the vet in to see what he could do for the
>
> damaged fetlock.
> He gave her a long-acting antibacterial injection for the wire gash, but he
> thought that the outcome would be that I would
>
> be minus one sheep and have a, severely, damaged bank account.
> The health of my bank account, such as it is, was of some serious concern,
> but I wanted to do what I could for the ewe, so
>
> I told him to go ahead and do what he could for her:  stopping short of a
> lethal injection.
> The next time he called, he said that, despite his injection, infection had
> set in and could he put her down?
> I still withheld my permission and instead, asked him to use some ointment
> in which I have always had a lot of faith:  :
>
> Rawley's Salve, or Rawley's Man and Beast as it was called when I was a
> child and I still call it by that name.
> Probably, he thought that I was fighting a losing battle, but he agreed to
> do as I asked, and the next time he came in, the
>
> sheep was not out of the woods, but the bad smell had gone, and the hoof
> was
> a lot better;  instead of it staying doubled
>
> over when she took a  step, it was beginning to work as it should.
> He said that there was no point  in further visits from him and that, if I
> wished,  I should just keep doing as I was: i.e:
>
>  bathing it in a solution of zinc and disinfectant and then applying  the
> Rawleys.
> At this point, Guideon makes an unwelcome reentrance into my narrative.
> I have omitted to say that I was keeping the ewe in the barn, and one
> evening when I went in to attend to her, he barged
>
> past me, and, in a flash, had grabbed her.
> In his usual style, he was tearing at her, but, fortunately, she was
> carrying a very thick fleece so he was just getting
>
> mouthfuls of wool.
> I rushed back and got hold of the ewe but, in the struggle, I was pulled
> over and I could not get hold of the blasted dog;
>
> however, once I had regained my feet, I did and, there being a fibreglass
> rod at hand, I thrashed him, and made every blow
>
> count.
> I know that it hurt him a lot less than it did me, because on the occasions
> that my blows missed the dog and landed on me,
>
> they did hurt, but, unlike him,  I wasn't protected by a thick coat.
> I short-chained him to one of the stancheons, and left him in the barn with
> the sheep overnight.
> When I went in the next morning, my word! what a different dog he was!
> clipping a lead to his collar, I walked him up to
>
> the sheep.  He walked up very quietly, and she was unafraid, sensing that
> he
> presented no threat!
> I have been accused of abuse but I had no alternative;  severe action was
> called for and  it had to be telling and
>
> IMMEDIATE!
> Keeping it in mind that he had been within a breath of being killed 9 times
> in the previous 2 years, I don't think that my
>
> action was unwarranted as it saved his life:  a life worth saving!
>
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> Hiccup #2.
>
> February 2018.  Now, I don't keep a track of Guideon's movements every
> moment of the day:  he may be under my desk, in his
>
> bedbox, or out in the yard, but in one of those places he * will be, so it
> is not necessary to be checking for him at
>
> regular intervals.  however, several times of late, he has been appearing
> beside me in places where he had no business to
>
> be, and I couldn't figure out how he was appearing where he was.  It seemed
> that he must be getting out under the house,
>
> but how, in all that's wonderful, could he be doing that?
> My house is a villa built in the early part of the 20th century and is on
> foundations that keep it about 2 feet from the
>
> ground so there is, or was, when I bought the BlanchRanch in 1986, a
> clearance under the house of that dimension.  Having a
>
> whole raft of dogs when I moved in, I had that gap, completely covered with
> sheets of corrugated iron, so how could he be
>
> getting under the house.  On a couple of occasions, I thought that I heard
> a
> bump come from under the floor, but my hearing
>
> is so unreliable and defective these days, that I could not swear to having
> heard something or not!
> Anyway, leaving him in the yard, I went out to collect the wheeliebin, and
> when I came back inside, Guideon had gone!
> Immediately, I rang Keith who is one of my 8 neighbours and the one that I
> have most to do with and asked him if he could
>
> see Guideon in the paddock or  were the sheep disturbed.
> I rang him back a few minutes later to say that I had Guideon and it
> didn't
> look as though he had been attacking sheep.
> And this was the story that he told me.
> When I had rung him, he went out and there were only 2 sheep of the 13 in
> the paddock.  The rest Guideon had rounded up and
>
> brought up into the barn and divided them:  or perhaps they had divided
> themselves:  there were 7 in one part of the barn
>
> and 4 in the section that Keith calls the lambing bay as this seems to be
> the ewe's favourite maternity unit.
> Guideon was still with the sheep but, when he saw Keith coming, he
> hightailed it back to the house, and Keith took note of
>
> where he disappeared from sight.
> Now, this convinced me that G was getting under the house so some of the
> barricading must be missing; and so it was, and it
>
> had come about in the following manner.
> A month ago, one of my household waterpipes was leaking and I called a
> plumber in to deal with it, which he did, most
>
> satisfactorily.
> However, to get at the point at which the pipe was leaking, he had had to
> remove the said barricading, and had failed to
>
> put it back.
> This happened a month ago, so, possibly, Guideon has been coming and going
> to and from the sheep all that time.
> Has he been practising sheep handling all this month.
> He, certainly, had made a very proficient job of rounding them up:  he did
> miss 2, but who is counting, and put them in the
>
> barn as though he had been doing it for years!
> Bloodthirsty sheep killer turned very gentle sheepdog:  amazing, but true!
> Just another thing to add to the list of
>
> amazing things that have happened and continue to happen on The
> BlanchRanch!
>
>
>
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