John Turley-Ewart's Premise Is Supported By The Increase In Teenage Homicides

But we haven't declared open season on teenagers......

John Turley-Ewart: Don't blame farmers for shooting stray dogs

The news out of Uxbridge, Ont., today is distressing to dog lovers. The small Ontario community located north-east of Toronto, a mixture of farms, an old town main street and new subdivisions, is abuzz about the death of two family pets — golden retrievers. The dogs admittedly escaped their owners' home (their children had them out on a lead for a walk and lost control of them) and found their way to a local farm where the farmer shot and killed them. The dogs' owners were informed of the fate of their pets by an animal control officer who informed them the farmer was well within his rights to do so. The owners of the dogs can't fathom this and want to know who the farmer is, saying their dogs would not hurt a fly. But such a view of dogs is borne more of fantasy than reality. Dogs are bound by their animal instinct and even the most tame family pet can, when in the presence of a goat or sheep, turn into a hunter. This report from British farmers about attacks on livestock by dogs paints a better picture of this reality than that imagined by the Uxbridge family that have lost their pets. The lesson that the Uxbridge family did not learn, and others should, is that if you live near a farm it is critically important that you keep control of your dogs at all times and that if left to run free, they may not only do harm to farm animals, they may be shot by a farmer trying to protect his livestock.