fedd up - You're right - I've seen it twice - was in denial the first time. Let me tell you about my morning TODAY.
Many of you know I have a Pitt Bull I gave a second chance (umm, or more than that) because she's the dearest thing. ALL MY DOGS are fixed, got their shots and are healthy and SWEET dogs.
But the pack mentality, though you'd never guess it in the rest of them, came out today.
We heard what we thought was a child screaming amongst dogs barking. We RAN to it. It was a full grown sheep with horns, down on the ground with my sweet little "Cookie" having a mouthful bite and shaking her head. There was a fence between us, so I reached over the fence and beat the dog with a stick. She backed up, another dog jumped in her place. She returned. I kept swinging the sticks - but more was needed. My daughter, barefoot and scared, climbed the fence and pulled the two pit bulls off the animal. The dogs were so very sweet to her, though. We got torn up by branches, dirty from falling, bloody from the animal (who is okay) and put the pits in the car to take them to the pound.
The other dogs, we assumed, ran home. We assumed incorrectly. The Burmese Mountain Dog (big baby) and a Heinz57 Variety scaredy cat kind of meek dog had continued their blood thirst and gone after a baby of this sheep in the back yard. We heard it while looking for the other dogs. Totally assumed they weren't invoved other than barking - until the meek doggie came back with blood all over her.
It doesn't surprise me that the dogs came up to the officers in the other story and were sweet. My dogs are SWEET dogs. It just takes one "leader" and more than one "follower" dog - and you can have a pack.
My daughter is sobbing her little eyes out right now - but since we originally THOUGHT it was a child screaming and not a sheep bleating - she was just as insistant as I was that they go to the pound. I only had room for two dogs to go. The others are in the house, locked up, awaiting my decision what to do with them.
I know from past experience, if you get rid of the leader, you have no more problems.
I smell like goat and look like a bloody mess.
That was THIS morning. Just now.
PS
For those that are freaking out that my daughter pulled the pitts off the animal, you have to have been there to see it. When she called the dogs through the fence, they came to her wagging their tails. When she landed on the other side of the fence on her butt, they stopped what they were doing to come to her "aid" and lick her face. They kept going back to the sheep barking and biting, but it was CLEAR before she touched the dogs that they weren't going to hurt her at all. AT ALL. Any indication and she'd have never gone to help the sheep at all. Just FYI. You really had to have been there to know it wasn't like I tossed my teenager into a feeding frenzy of pit bulls - like it may sound!
It sounds like the town is trying to be proactive with regard to laws regarding dogs...at least, moreso than many others. 