Dog owners must buck selfish trend of letting pets off the lead in the countryside: Sarah Todd

As a farmer’s daughter there is no way they would ever be walked along a footpath, even on a lead, through livestock.

Never mind bulls, hell hath no fury like a cow with a calf at foot and it’s just embarrassing. With such a myriad of alternative walkways, there is no need for it. Farmers have enough to worry about without members of the public meandering through any livestock.

But back to the point. It’s that time of year again when barely a day seems to go by when a dog attack on sheep isn’t in the news.

This ongoing failure of dog owners to recognise the threat their pets pose to farm livestock is the cause of these continued devastating attacks on sheep. That’s not just your woolly-brained correspondent, but straight from, the National Sheep Association (NSA).

Its annual survey shows that 87 per cent of respondents had experienced a dog attack on their sheep flock in the past 12 months, with the cause usually the simple refusal of dog owners to keep their pets on a lead while walking in the countryside.

Denial that their little darling - think back to that initial comparison with spoilt children - could be capable of such atrocities is at the heart of the matter.

The NSA’s Nicola Noble says dog owners are guilty of assuming their “beloved pet” could cause harm to another animal.

Sobering statistics from the survey include the average farm reported four sheep deaths per year due to worrying by dogs, an increase from previous years and a figure that does not take into account additional losses from lamb deaths when miscarried by ewes due to stress from attacks.

An interesting aside is the high proportion, 80 per cent, of farmers who say they have had a “negative experience” when approaching dog owners to ask for their canine companion to be put on a lead, with just under half receiving verbal and, in some cases, even physical attack.

This is an interesting shift in human behaviour. If somebody pointed out to yours truly that some rule or social norm had been broken, there would be genuine shame and embarrassment. Even writing this, the colour is rising and it’s easy to imagine the utter awfulness of being told off, of getting it wrong.

Also of note is the number of dogs now straying from their homes and gardens and going on these rampages. In fact, over half the farmers responding to the survey revealed the attacks had happened in private fields with no footpaths, suggesting straying dogs or a failure of dog owners to respect private farmland.

Surely this is evidence of the failure of the move to the country brigade to learn - or respect - the rural way of life. Just because somebody has bought a country cottage or former farmhouse it doesn’t give them carte blanche to let their dogs roam willy nilly.

It’s absolutely fascinating how many lost dog pictures appear all over social media these days, with sob stories about them having gone missing.

Going back to the subject of shame, none of these online posts seem to express even the slightest amount of remorse that the disappeared dog was able to wander off. Either off the lead on a walk - on somebody else’s property - or not properly contained within their own back yard or garden.

It must be awful for families if they never get to know what happened to their pet. But time and again, it’s on the tip of this writer’s tongue to ask the owners of disappearing dogs what they expected to happen. After fathering a final litter, the gentleman of our pack has had his wanderlust operated on.

But still, if our eyes are going to be off him for more than a minute he’s put on his kennel and chain. A chain? The modern generation are, on the whole, absolutely disgusted at this. Perhaps they think it infringes his canine rights. Maybe it does, but if it’s stops him getting into trouble.

To finish on those parallels between unruly children and dogs, readers may not be surprised to learn that our offspring spent their formative years either behind bars in a playpen or fastened to a rein when out in public – both worked wonders.