Neighbor dog vs LGD. Eventually there will be trouble.

Blue Sky

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New neighbors have a pit bull bitch and her 3-4 month old puppy. She roams freely and recently has taken an interest in fence fighting with my LGDs and is interested in my sheep. I have no contact info and can’t approach the house. I have had a pit and a pit x rottie as well as LGDs so I have some experience w dog behavior. This dog has aggression issues and I now take a gun w me to my back pasture in case she’s gotten in. This I’m afraid, is not going to end well. We are rural so no authorities will get involved. I guess I’m down to a note in the mailbox. Suggestions?
 

Baymule

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People who let aggressive dogs roam do not give one bit of care about you, your dogs, your sheep or anything else. My theory is that if you notify them that their dog is a problem, you will be the first person they come to when their dog disappears. If you know nothing about their dog and have not placed yourself on their radar, it will keep much better neighbor relations. JMO
 

Beekissed

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People who let aggressive dogs roam do not give one bit of care about you, your dogs, your sheep or anything else. My theory is that if you notify them that their dog is a problem, you will be the first person they come to when their dog disappears. If you know nothing about their dog and have not placed yourself on their radar, it will keep much better neighbor relations. JMO

I agree! So, so many people have started a war with neighbors with something so simple as a note or polite phone call about their dogs....and it doesn't end well. Usually their LGDs are poisoned across the fence line.

Don't say a word....let your dogs do their jobs and they will. No pit dog will be a match for a couple of good LGDs....they can kill wolves, they can kill a pit bull. Keep your gun handy and if you have to use it, don't tell a soul....not even on here...even if you were fully in your rights to defend your life, dogs and stock. Just disappear the carcass and when they come asking if you've seen their dog, say you have but haven't seen it since whatever time or day you SSS and it's nothing but the truth.

Bay is right....folks who have those kinds of dogs roaming free won't care a thing about how polite or nice you are about their nuisance dogs. Not only will they not care, but they will be fully angered that your dogs get to roam freely in the pasture but you expect theirs to not be able to do so on THEIR side of the fence.

Don't say a single word.
 

Blue Sky

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Yep that pup is hers, can’t wait til she goes into heat again 😱 My boys have been neutered but I have seen them all display extreme interest in in heat bitches. Oh. Yay.
 

Blue Sky

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Not to turn this into a saga but the owners appear to be trying containment. The pup has an injury but both dogs were in neighboring donkey pasture so- 💡💡💡💡
 

Beekissed

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Not to turn this into a saga but the owners appear to be trying containment. The pup has an injury but both dogs were in neighboring donkey pasture so- 💡💡💡💡

That oughta do it. :lol: Could be your problems are solved, if they are smart enough to heed the warning. Donkeys....gotta love 'em. :love
 

YourRabbitGirl

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New neighbors have a pit bull bitch and her 3-4 month old puppy. She roams freely and recently has taken an interest in fence fighting with my LGDs and is interested in my sheep. I have no contact info and can’t approach the house. I have had a pit and a pit x rottie as well as LGDs so I have some experience w dog behavior. This dog has aggression issues and I now take a gun w me to my back pasture in case she’s gotten in. This I’m afraid, is not going to end well. We are rural so no authorities will get involved. I guess I’m down to a note in the mailbox. Suggestions?
That will be very inevitable. Good luck with that. :D:D:D
 

Ridgetop

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I agree with everyone above. Don't complain to your neighbors and get into a fight about their dogs. If they are letting the dogs run, someone will shoot them, coyotes will kill them, or the LGDs will take them out when they come in after the livestock. Keep your gun handy, and just shoot and bury them without saying anything. If you let your neighbors know that you are upset about their dogs, they will come after you if someone else shoots theit dogs. If the puppy got injured, maybe they figured out they need to keep the dogs confined. If the dogs come on your property, you are entitled to shoot it. If anyone wants to know what you were shooting at say a coyote was after your sheep. If their dogs take down a ewe or lamb and you shoot it and it has ID, you can decide then if you want to try to collect compensation from the owners. You might have to go to court to do that. Most states allow compensation of the value of the animals if you have proof. Sometimes you are allowed 2 to 3 times the value from a dog attack if you can ID the owner and prove that the dog(s) was running loose. I would probably only try to collect compensation if the dog killed or tore up a number of sheep since you would have to show the sheriff the body of the dog and the collar or microchip information proving ownership. While you would probably win, you will have a neighbor feud. On the other hand, a lot of people who let dogs run loose do not ID their dogs and will deny that it is their dog.

Better to just shoot, shovel and shut up.

A couple years go the neighbor cross the gully had a large Cane Corso, a pitbull and a cross of the 2. Those 3 dogs terrorized the neighborhood. They were sweet when approaching people, but killed a lot of animals including finally all his goats sheep and poultry. He blamed a mountain lion. People did not want to report the dogs or their problems and when you called the owner he would pick them up and just said that they got out when he opened his automatic gate! The owner had a lot of money and people were afraid to complain much. We didn't know anything about them even though we had sheep and lots of lambs in our field. But we also had 2 Anatolian LGDs at the time (now 3). We believed that a mountain ion had attacked and decimated his livestock since supposedly they found the prints of 2 or 3 lions. We thought a lioness training her cubs did the job.

Shortly after that, our lower neighbor called in a panic - the 3 dogs had attacked her mare in her corral right outside her house! The mare was severely injured and they had driven the dogs off but the 3 dogs were heading uphill towards our property. I yelled for my son to bring his rifle and we all ran outside to protect the sheep. We couldn't see the dogs and our Anatolians were not barking. Then I saw our dogs running along the fence line silently. The other 3 dogs were on the other side of the fence and our dogs were pacing them. My son ran over to get a shot at them but they had turned up into the hills and I told him not to shoot since they were a ways off and there were houses there. He has a "marksman" ranking from the army, but I ddn't want to take any chances.

The reason our dogs were not barking at those dogs is because if those dogs had come into the property my dogs would have just tried to kill them. LGDs coming to KILL a predator do not make any noise. They bark to warn off predators but any predator stupid or bold enough to disregard their warnings and come after their flock just gets killed.

Hopefully the owners will start keeping the dogs fenced in now that one has gotten injured.
 
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