I was out hunting this past weekend with a couple buddies. We had finished our morning hunt, then corned the roads and then went back to the house eat breakfast. After breakfast we decided to walk around to see if we could sneak up on some deer eating from the corn on the roads.
As we are walking through the ranch, two large white dogs come running up to us. They both have obvious GPS trackers on them. They seem friendly enough so we call to them to see if we can identify the owners. We are also somewhat irritated as having dogs running through our ranch could clearly affect the hunting.
We call the owner (number was on the collar) and leave a message. I also text the number. We do not get any response. We walk the dogs over to the nearest fence and they run off to the neighbors property. At this point we assumed they knew where they were going and had sent them back to their owner's home.
About fifteen minutes later, we get a call from the owner of the dogs, who advises they are livestock dogs that are supposed to be protecting his goats on a neighboring ranch. He is not the owner of the neighboring ranch, he just leases it to run livestock. He apologizes and tells us if we see them again to shoot at them (not actually shoot them) as that will scare them off. I was somewhat surprised that he advised to shoot at his dogs, but at this point we thought they had left our property.
After we finished walking around (didn't see any deer, which wasn't too surprising because of the dogs...we were not hunting a large area and the dogs were in the middle of it), we get back to the cabin where the dogs happened to be sitting in the yard. I call the owner again, and he once again tells us to shoot at the dogs. Literally, the only thing he offered as far as how to deal with the dogs was to shoot at them. At this point the dogs are about a mile from the ranch that they were supposed to be on and we had no confidence that shooting at them would result in them staying off the ranch. Additionally, even if they ran off, the route they would have to take would result in them running through our prime hunting areas.
The owner apologized for the dogs being there, but did not offer to come get them. He just told us to shoot at them and offered to reimburse us for the cost of the bullet. None of us wanted to shoot at the dogs. We ended up taking them back to the ranch where they were supposed to be and putting them back over the fence. At that point they ran off towards the goat herd.
Speaking frankly, I was surprised at a couple things:
1) That an owner of dogs and/or goats would leave the dogs to roam around. How can they be certain they won't get onto other property and mess up hunting and/or something else?
2) That the owner did not offer to come get the dogs and that his only advice was to shoot at them.
Has anyone else had experience with sheep/livestock dogs coming on to their property? Is that to be expected when a neighboring ranch has dogs protecting the livestock? I like dogs, and don't place any responsibility on the dogs. They were just being dogs. And they seemed very friendly. I also don't have any direct criticisms with the owner of the dogs, as he was polite and apologetic as well. I think the whole situation just surprised me.
As we are walking through the ranch, two large white dogs come running up to us. They both have obvious GPS trackers on them. They seem friendly enough so we call to them to see if we can identify the owners. We are also somewhat irritated as having dogs running through our ranch could clearly affect the hunting.
We call the owner (number was on the collar) and leave a message. I also text the number. We do not get any response. We walk the dogs over to the nearest fence and they run off to the neighbors property. At this point we assumed they knew where they were going and had sent them back to their owner's home.
About fifteen minutes later, we get a call from the owner of the dogs, who advises they are livestock dogs that are supposed to be protecting his goats on a neighboring ranch. He is not the owner of the neighboring ranch, he just leases it to run livestock. He apologizes and tells us if we see them again to shoot at them (not actually shoot them) as that will scare them off. I was somewhat surprised that he advised to shoot at his dogs, but at this point we thought they had left our property.
After we finished walking around (didn't see any deer, which wasn't too surprising because of the dogs...we were not hunting a large area and the dogs were in the middle of it), we get back to the cabin where the dogs happened to be sitting in the yard. I call the owner again, and he once again tells us to shoot at the dogs. Literally, the only thing he offered as far as how to deal with the dogs was to shoot at them. At this point the dogs are about a mile from the ranch that they were supposed to be on and we had no confidence that shooting at them would result in them staying off the ranch. Additionally, even if they ran off, the route they would have to take would result in them running through our prime hunting areas.
The owner apologized for the dogs being there, but did not offer to come get them. He just told us to shoot at them and offered to reimburse us for the cost of the bullet. None of us wanted to shoot at the dogs. We ended up taking them back to the ranch where they were supposed to be and putting them back over the fence. At that point they ran off towards the goat herd.
Speaking frankly, I was surprised at a couple things:
1) That an owner of dogs and/or goats would leave the dogs to roam around. How can they be certain they won't get onto other property and mess up hunting and/or something else?
2) That the owner did not offer to come get the dogs and that his only advice was to shoot at them.
Has anyone else had experience with sheep/livestock dogs coming on to their property? Is that to be expected when a neighboring ranch has dogs protecting the livestock? I like dogs, and don't place any responsibility on the dogs. They were just being dogs. And they seemed very friendly. I also don't have any direct criticisms with the owner of the dogs, as he was polite and apologetic as well. I think the whole situation just surprised me.
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