Loose dog killed 26 sheep, teen says

[accadacca]

A Dog...really?

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SPANISH FORK -- A Utah County teen is asking dog owners to keep a better eye on
their pets. She says dozens of her animals were killed, all by a loose dog.

Spanish Fork High School senior Kelly Olsen has been raising sheep trying to earn scholarship money through the Future Farmers of America.

"I would raise them and figure out the genetic qualities out of them to make a really good show lamb, or market lamb," she said.

She had been working with these sheep for four years, three to four hours every day after she was done with school. When she went to feed them on Tuesday, she was startled by what she saw.

"I found three dead sheep, one barely alive, and the dog was [lying] with it," she said.

Olsen says 26 of her sheep were killed, in all. She believes it was all done by the same dog since there was only one set of prints in the ice and snow. She also thinks the dog is probably someone's pet. It looked like a black lab and didn't have the appearance of a wild or stray dog. It even seemed to act friendly to her until she angrily approached it, then it ran away.

Officials from the Utah County Sheriff's Office confirm they were called out to the farm, but Olsen says it became too hard to track the dog since it was getting dark.

"When I saw all the dead animals, I got really upset because I put all this hard work into them," she said. What's most upsetting to Olsen is the fact that years of her work are lost for good.

"You can't really replace the ones that we lost because those had really different genetics and their parents have passed away, so you can't get those same [genes] back," she explained.

Her father estimates the value of the sheep was near $28,000.

(Stock photo)
Source: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=1885...heep-teen-says

[tallsteve]

I believe it. Only a couple of days after I had returned from my mission, I was home during the day and alone. My parents had about an acre of land, right in the middle of Kaysville city, with about half of it in pasture. For some reason mom and dad thought raising a few sheep would be a good idea that summer. Anyway, I heard a commotion out back and, looking out the window, saw that our neighbors huge German shepherd had one of the sheep by the throat. I could tell 2 others were already down and blood was everywhere. I ran out on the deck and yelled at the dog, but he was so into his bloodlust that the yelling had no effect. The only thing I could think of doing was to grab my .22 which took another minute or so to get. By the time I ran onto the deck with my rifle, the 3rd sheep was down and he was going after the 4th. I steadied the rifle on the deck railing and squeezed of a couple of quick rounds, killing the dog. The pasture was a horrible, bloody scene with 4 dead sheep and one dead dog. A neighbor came out after hearing the gun shots and I told him to call the police (this was way before cell phones). The cops were pretty dumbfounded and I got a stern warning for firing a weapon within city limits, but I had a couple of them tell me "Nice shot" afterward and that they would have done the same thing. It was kinda weird as I felt like I had committed a crime when I was just trying to protect our animals. I don't remember if the neighbor was cited, but we were able to salvage some of the sheep meat. Funny thing was the neighbor was one of my home teaching families, but I could never face him after that.

[Sombeech]

[Iceaxe]

I believe it.

x2

A dog can decimate a herd a sheep in no time at all. Sheep aren't very good fighters.