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A dalmation is not a herding dog. Research should have been done to get the correct breed. That is why this dog was going after the lambs! A border collie will herd farm animals and not harm lambs. When it come to pets, whether farm or home, uneducated people make many of us very angry! Usually the outcome is dismal for the animal and there is no reason for it!
Wow.
Dalmations are generally amenable to cattle, horses and livestock, as they were bred to do.
Quote:
His activities have been as varied as his reputed ancestors. He has been a dog of war, a sentinel on the border of Dalmatia and Croatia. He has been employed as draft dog, as shepherd. He is excellent on rats and vermin.
Actually they make great farm animals. My buddy has one and it dispatches field rats and rabbits from his garden quite effectively.
Boxers were not bred to be herding dogs either...but surprise of all surprises...they make some darn good herding dogs!! Its just how they are raised. We teach our dogs to do some non traditional things because our dogs are with us 100% of the time.
As for hunting dogs and research, do some research on raising sheep. The number one predator of sheep is not coyotes...it's domestic dogs actually. They cause more abortions in ewes, deaths and broken legs because they chose to chase cows. One woman I know of could not convince her neighbor that "Fluffy" was attacking her sheep until she put a GPS system on her LGD. Surprise of all surprises, you could track in one night when her dog came out of the house and bothered the sheep and the LGD drove it back off again and again. Confronted with the evidence she now keeps her dog locked up.
As for my place, its a farm that is pretty isolated with few domestic dogs. If a domestic dog was to enter a sheep paddock, I feel sorry for the dog. I would not have to lift a finger...the donkey would stomp that dog to death. As for liability, thanks to the Right to Farm Laws, the only thing the dog owner would get out of the deal was blisters on their hands from shoveling dirt.
I have seen some Walkers chasing coyotes here. But with dogs chasing the coyotes, they aren't going to stop and make lunch of my sheep. At the same time these hunting dogs are so well trained that they know the difference between sheep and coyotes. With their help this winter the hunters have thinned 25 coyotes from this farm. As I said, we love dogs and could not live without them.
Feel free to call me names if you want, but let me say this. Working with thousands of animals on a daily basis is how I make my living. You could not comprehend how instinctive it is for me to size up an animal and try to predict what it will do before it does it.
Funny story actually regarding a child (me) and an out of control animal. In this case it was a Ram-Lamb and I was only two years old.
Anyway the Ram butted me and sent me sprawling, so dad swooped me up and and put me out of the pen. As he did the Ram charged him and sent him on his hiney. Grabbing a shovel Dad cold-cocked him, but as everyone knows, a ram has a double-skull and was unphased. He swatted him a few more times before he got out of the pen, but still was covered in sheep poo.
Now mad, he ran in the house and called up the cattle dealer and told him to come right over and pick "one up." That was all he said. When a cattle dealer gets those kinds of calls, it only means one thing, so an hour later the cattle dealer shows up and looks at this little ram-lamb.
"I got a load of cattle on, I can't take that lamb."
"Well he isn't staying here that's for sure."
Despite a mounted arument, Dad made it clear that the ram-lamb was not staying here, so finally the guy said he will take it but "I won't be responsible for him getting to the slaughterhouse safely."
Well later on Dad found out that not only did the ram-lamb make it, when they opened up the trailer doors, the ram-lamb had 8 full grown steers pinned up against the headboard of the trailer. Upon seeing his escape, he took off and ran into the slaughterhouse banging his head again and again on the gate that led to a pen. Hearing the commion, the butcher came out of a meat locker and saw what was going on and said "I got something for you." A captured bolt to the head made him go down and stunned him long enough for him to be properly slaughtered.
In 220 years of sheep farming though, this was the only nasty ram-lamb we ever encoutered.
Broken Tap, I had to laugh at the story you told, but I'm a farm kid, now adult farm kid, too so maybe that's why! I can picture that whole scenario like a movie.
I had a German Shepherd/Doberman X that I used to herd cows. I had no choice but to let her 'cuz she just HAD to do it, and I'd like to say that I trained her but I didn't. We had a small herd of 500 head and she just took to it like no tomorrow. She was extremely useful in taking the ones where the heifers died giving birth. Since I needed to be able to handle several calves sometimes at once, she learned to take the lead rope on the calves (yes, I halter trained them...even though they were beef cows---yes they were all named too *shameful grin*), and would walk them to wherever I needed them to go leaving me to be able to use both my hands. She would get in the fields when were were cutting out the herd for various reasons and I'll be damn if she wouldn't hold them. I had a heifer break out and head right for me once and she wasn't coming to be nice. She was, ahem, sorted and hauled, thanks to Lady.
The first time I saw this I just about, well, I stood there with my mouth open. Later, I found out she had been hanging out with one of THE BEST cow dogs I ever had the privilege of knowing, Freida (an Aussie) when she wasn't with me. Apparently, the guys were taking Lady out on the feeding runs with Freida. I am pretty sure Freida taught her the ropes. When the old "cow guys" would come out to shoot the shi* and whatnot, I'd make bets with them and win about what my silly looking, floppy eared, long-tailed mutt could do!
One more comment, then I'll shut my yap, you mention about sizing up animals to predict what they will do. Truer words were never spoken because sometimes if you don't do that first, well, you're in for gettin' stomped, kicked, bit, thrown, broke, or worse, dead. Thankfully, I'm not dead yet, but all the rest has happened!
I find it interesting that nobody has freaked out and wanted to ban chow chows from being owned.... if this had been a pit bull that was involved imagine the media coverage then.
This just goes to show you that ANY dog of ANY breed can be dangerous.
I've posted in several threads that my boyfriend and I don't like chow dogs, along with a few other large breeds (rotties etc... ) and pit bulls. And work has kept me very busy this week so I this is the first chance I've had to post in this thread.
What's to freak out about anyway? Babies and young children should never be left along with any dog.
Wow, this just happened a few days ago and 6 pages of posts already! If I repeat something sorry, but I do not want to read all 6 pages
I live in arizona and have been watching this on the news. They said that the mom put the two week old baby in a bassinet so she could go to the bathroom and when she came out the chow had the baby in its mouth. The dad was at work. That is an awful story I believe the chow is going to be euthanized and they also said that they removed two other family dogs from the home. Tragic story.
Like Seebee said earlier, "we" think it is just for a minute... to leave the room... 2 wk old not moving anywhere... thought she was safe, just going to ... pee...
Like Seebee said earlier, "we" think it is just for a minute... to leave the room... 2 wk old not moving anywhere... thought she was safe, just going to ... pee...
But it is still not the doggies fault.
Such a sad story
Do you always cry?
And no- not the breeds fault at all, is it. The parents should have known better than to let a newborn in the same room with a dog bred to do, well- you know.
Should I tell you about the red angus we had to shoot last year because it was infected? Nah. Protein truck picked him up and made him into dog food and glue...
And I know one guy that had two chows, one a gentle dog, the other mean as hell. He shot the mean one because it looked sideways at his two year old son.
Good for him. I'll err on the side of the kid 100% of the time.
Boo-hoo.
Last edited by Threerun; 03-06-2009 at 08:19 PM..
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I believe the chow is going to be euthanized and they also said that they removed two other family dogs from the home. Tragic story.
