Sheep ‘ripped apart’ in dog attack
AFARMER has urged dog owners to keep their pets under control after his sheep were ‘ripped apart’ when a dog got into their field.
Witnesses said the Husky-type dog ‘went berserk’ in the field at Stanley Hall Farm in Cheadle Hulme yesterday (Tuesday), killing four sheep and injuring others.
Farmer Trevor McClean said he got a phone call early on from one of his neighbours saying there was a dog in the field and it was attacking the sheep.
By the time he arrived the dog had been shot.
Speaking the following day he said: “It was quite a shocking scene.
“Some people had gone into the field to try to stop the dog, and it had turned on them so they had to shoot it.
“It had killed two sheep outright and injured nine others.
Three vets came out and had to put two more of them down.
“They managed to stitch the others up, and they were looking somewhat better this morning.”
Mr McLean says it is not the first time this has happened, although this is the highest number of casualties he has seen.
“The dog was microchipped so we were able to trace the owner,” he said. “It turns out it had escaped from its home early on Tuesday morning, and the owner had been out looking for it all morning.
“It is a salutary lesson, as it goes to show that even well-loved and looked-after pets can be dangerous to sheep, so it is important that people keep their dogs on the lead. It is actually quite common for normally well behaved pets to do things like this, and it is always worse at lambing time for some reason – perhaps because the dogs can smell the blood.”
One nearby resident who witnessed the incident said: “The dog got into the field and just went berserk.
“This is a common problem around here – it happens all the time.”
Mr McLean, who will be left with large vets’ bills after the incident, says he also has problems with people stealing the sheep.
“We have lost 10 in total, two of which were bottlereared orphans that we looked after in the house,” he said.
“It is very upsetting, because people take them to slaughter them, and they won’t be doing it humanely.”