Friday January 1st, 2010 will be remembered with much sadness by one Shepherding Family of Christopher Lake, Saskatchewan.  Shannon Neurauter was at work that day and her 16 year old daughter, Antonia along with a friend walked down to the barn to feed the animals for her. Antonia found their 8 month old heifer calf out of the fence and scared.  As they walked up to the heifer they began to see pink sheep, some on top of the bales, some on the ground. When the girls opened the gate they saw blood everywhere and a dead sheep.  Antonia then spotted the first dog and sent her friend to fetch her father, Ross.  The first dog sort of half wagged its tail so Antonia spoke to it and grabbed it when it got close and tied it to the fence.  At the same time Antonia looked up and saw the second dog hunched down mauling and eating one of the sheep who was still alive, all she saw was a fairly white face and then concentrated more on the dog she could catch.  Shannon later asked Antonia what she saw and all she said was "mom, there was blood everywhere and all I remember is the dog had a white face and maybe blotches or something".  The second dog was gone when Antonia looked up again. Ross called the number on the caught dog's collar and told the owner what had happened.  Ross described the other dog to her as Antonia had described it to him and they knew right away whose it was, as they are neighbors.

The owners of the dog that was caught by Antonia in the sheep pen have said they would pay damages and have been told the amount and hopefully they will follow through.  The dog owner was shocked at what happened and sad that her animal was to be destroyed but actually came to the yard and saw the damage and left her dog with Ross knowing he would put it down. The second dog owner who also came down and saw the damage, said that when he found his dog he would put the dog down and knew he would be billed for damages. That was mid afternoon of Friday, Jan 1, 2010.   Shannon spoke with him Saturday evening and the owner said the dog had come home that day and they would take her to the vet Monday. Yet, when Shannon called that evening and they said the dog "only came home with such a small amount of blood on her" that it couldn't be their dog and if it was such a blood bath like Shannon said (the wife had not come to see the damage) why didn't her dog have more blood on it?"  They said they would not put her down and when Ross called them back later with an amount for damages they said they would not pay that either.

The owners of the dogs really had no idea of the value of the animals their dogs had destroyed.  Shannon's sheep were all dorper/katahdin crosses but she always bought registered Dorper rams.

The RCMP, By-Law officers for the RM, and Saskatchewan Sheep Development Board, were all contacted.  The RCMP made a record of the complaint but stated that they don't deal with domestic dog attacks on animals and did not come out. The bylaw officer came and took statements, pictures and copies of the vet supplies bought and letters sent to the owners with the bill attached. He plans to contact the one dog owner and possibly charge both with having their dogs at large. He was also taking the information to the next RM meeting.

Shannon did take pictures, but of course that does not show the whole picture. 

You can not hear the grinding teeth from pain or the complete silence in Shannon's barn since none of her ewes can make any noise at all. Shannon has not heard even one tiniest "baa" from anyone.  It is incredibly hard to catch and hold the sheep to give pain medications and antibiotics when you can not run them in the chute, hold them around the neck or hardly anywhere. They received pain medication for 3 days but the vet said only that and no more because it can cause organ damage if given to long. It definitely helped them though. Shannon has only 17 animals left. Ewes who were bred but now aborted except maybe 1 or 2 at the moment and a few ewe lambs as well as a registered Dorper ram. Two of the older ewes have enough damage to the back end that they probably can never be bred again, only time will tell. Two young ewes have severe lacerations to their nose, and up until yesterday you could hear the air escaping through the bridge of the nose. Several have green fractures in at least one leg and two have in both one front and one back leg.  Faces are badly swollen with large lacerations, Shannon doesn't know if any have broken teeth but one will be blind in one eye.  Most of the ID tags are gone from both the live and some dead animals, so Shannon's records are pretty much destroyed.

The real cost here is that the neighbors, and even ourselves do not regard our sheep as a valuable animal.  This is starting to be dealt with under the predation programs and the insurance programs put out through the government. The Livestock Predation Program is limited to wildlife only, and any compensation for damage caused by domestic animals has to be obtained through litigation.

The link for Manitoba is:  http://www.masc.mb.ca/masc.nsf/program_wildlife_damage_compensation.html

Perhaps we need to add this to the list of farm disaster procedures in our farm plans.  This is something we hope to never face but need to know what to do when it happens.  Just like being faced with a flood or fire, what are the steps we need to follow, who do we contact, how do we proceed after the initial danger has passed?   What are the rules for our county or province?

It is not just the cost of replacing the animals lost and healing the ones injured.  It is the loss of years of breeding and selecting for certain traits as well as income from this and future years.  Here is the sheep math:  if you had 15 x $200 (cost of ewe) who were in lamb (2nd lambers rate twins) 2x150 for butcher lambs that would be =  $3000 for the ewes plus $4500 for the lambs from those = $7500.oo

Ram = $500 to $2000 (depending on what you had).