Dogs savage Papanui flock

Press, 29 August 1986, Page 3

Dogs savage Papanui flock

The two dogs that killed 20 sheep and injured at least 100 others on a farmlet in Papanui yesterday morning have been destroyed. They wreaked havoc in a flock of hoggets in a paddock on Mr Ben Hosking’s farmlet in Grassmere Street. “My dog would not have done that. It is irresponsible to have dogs running round like that,” said Mr Hoskings, aged 68, who has farmed there for 30 to 40 years. “When they have done

it once they have to be destroyed.” Mr Hosking and a neighbour, Mr Robert Nicholl, spent yesterday removing dead sheep and shooting others that had been badly savaged. Some had drowned in a creek at the corner of the paddock as they cowered from the dogs — a German shepherd and a Rhodesian Ridge-back-cross. Twenty sheep died in the paddock yesterday morning when the dogs attacked and at least an-

other 20 were later shot Mr Hosking estimates the value of the sheep killed and injured at more than SIOCB. About one-fifth of his flock of 250 were affected. The dogs had “galloped the sheep round” for several hours early yesterday morning. Mr Hosking first heard of the attack when a neighbour • telephoned about 7.30 a.m. The dogs had gone to an empty paddock across the road. The police were called

and a policeman armed with a .38 calibre pistol shot and wounded the Rhodesian Ridgeback. The owners of the dogs were traced and told to have the animals destroyed. Mr Hosking said that he had had trouble with dogs attacking his sheep in the past, but nothing as serious. Mr Nicholl said that he had previously run sheep in a paddock by Grassmere Street, where they had been bothered by a German shepherd.