DOGS KILL SHEEP

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21560, 3 August 1933, Page 8

DOGS KILL SHEEP

TWENTY-FIVE LEFT DEAD OTHERS BADLY WORRIED ATTACK IN HAGLEY PARK TWO ALSATIANS SHOT LATER [BY TELEGRAPH— OWN CORRESPONDENT] CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday Two Alsatian dogs went silently and savagely through a mob of nearly 600 ewes in South Hngley Park this morning, leaving a trail of about 25 dead sheep and half as many badly worried. Tho dogs, one of huge size, were eventually cornered and shot. '1 hey were without collars. The ewes were halfbreds, and in lamb and were tho property of Mr. I?. Wightman, of Moth von. The ewes were placed in the park on Monday ready for the sale at Addington yards today. At seven o'clock this morning, Mr. J. Templeton. groundsman at the Hagley Park cricket ground, saw two Alsatians in the park near the hockey ground and the sheep. Ho chased the dogs out on to the roadway. Mr. A. Gray, tho groundsman ' for Christ's College, saw two sheep lying dead on the polo ground at 7.10 a.m., and then he noticed the two Alsatians coming into the park near tho hockey ground. Ho then lost sight of the dogs, which had gone among the mob of ewes. Mr. Gray then went for help and sent for a man with a gun. He enlisted the services of a man on horseback with two sheep dogs. Subsequently the Alsatians left the sheep and started off toward Lincoln Road. The horseman set his two sheep dogs on to one of the Alsatians, and thus held both of them in the park until several men arrived. A circle was formed round the Alsatians and about 8 a.m. Mr. F. Grieve, who had arrived from the Addington yards, ?:hot one dog. The other dog immediately took up a defiant stand near its mate, and showed its fangs at Mr. Grieve before ho shot it with the second barrel. Mr. C. Ede, overseer for Pyne, Gould and Guinness, Limited, went round and killed several sheep that had been worried, some of them grievously. Sheep that have been worried usually hide, and Mr. Ede had to seek them out in a drain about Bft. deep. There he found half a dozen sheep which had been driven there by the dogs. These were not injured, but had to be helped back on to the pasture land again. Although two sheep wore killed on Monday night in exactly the same way as to-day, Mr. Ede said that it was the first real. trouble in the park for 12 months. Several years ago he had found 40 or 50 sheep injured and wandering about. The biggest menace in the park was the sheepdog and the fox terrier. The sheepdog herded the sheep and made it easy for the terrier to do the worrying. Mr. Gray has shot a score of dogs caught worrying sheep in the park, but he does not now possess the gun which was provided for him.