Frustrated ranchers want people to quit 'rescuing' their working guardian dogs | Hacker News Reader

Frustrated ranchers want people to quit 'rescuing' their working guardian dogs

cowboystatedaily.com

80 pointsrdmuser120 comments

The lead story is that someone took a dog with tags and contact info, didn’t call the owners took it to a shelter instead, then the shelter didn’t call the owner either. Finally, the owner calls the police and finds out what happened.

Either there’s a huge lack of common sense at many places here or this story is leaving some details out.

It's possible people don't like sheep ranchers. Or maybe its just that one rancher. We have the goat herders in our area that fence off parts of the undeveloped land during the summer because it's a fire hazard. Those guardian dogs never leave the fenced area, and they will let you know when you are too close very quickly.

That's the thing, they don't roam. My Great Pyrenees when younger would sometimes refuse to come in, and we have in our back yard a very low fence, like barely knee high in places, and a few other spots she could leave the yard.

But they're patrollers - they establish where they're meant to protect, and they stay in that area - they don't want to be lured away, because that means their home area is unprotected.

Some coyote hunt like that - they'll send a lone dog out to try to lure dogs to come investigate or play and when the animal does, the pack will get it. We went camping with friends and brought our GP, and when you could hear that, very near by, she was energized and on high alert, but she was locked in on standing right by us, between us and the howling.

> a new neighbor had spotted Faith just outside a fence on Wissner’s property

Wording could be taken either way, and I could be wrong, but it almost sounds like the dog was not on the property of its owner, and was over the fence in the neighbours property?

We have a huge problem with pet cats that stray from their properties and eat birds/fish/etc in neighbouring properties... if one turns up on my property, I trap it and send it to the shelter specifically so the owner gets fined, even though I know who owns it. It's what our local council/government recommend we do considering the owners already know it's illegal for pet cats to be off their property here (or even outside of their house after dark, which is almost always when we trap them in our yard).

> Faith was outside the livestock fence but still on Wissner's property, he said.

> it's illegal for pet cats to be off their property here

So, is it deliberate that this is indistinguishable from making outside cats illegal? Otherwise how the heck are owners supposed to ensure cats stay on their property?

> Otherwise how the heck are owners supposed to ensure cats stay on their property?

Sounds like that's their problem to figure out, and I think that's right. I would 1000 times rather have more birds at my feeders than the neighbor's cat pooping in my yard, hunting birds and bothering my dog.

Let them put in a good fence, electric collar, leash with one of those zip line things - whatever they have to do.

Reasonable. I like cats well enough, but I find that cat owners are usually very irrational about people disliking other people's cats causing issues, especially compared to dog owners. I don't really understand why.

Dogs are easier to train and control than cats. A dog being a menace outside can be put on a leash. That's not always an option for a cat, which in practice means the cat owner knowing the only option is to confine their cat indoors. Which many don't want to do. (Mine gets semi-supervised time outside. I put a GPS collar on him from time to time, however, and he doesn't go far and comes back quite quickly. He's also seventeen and so past his most urgent hunting days, though we did have an issue with him letting in an elk last winter.)

Cats are like us. They don't give a fuck and consider the planet their private resort. It's what I like about them.

On the other hand, assuming you are in North America or Europe in a typical urban or suburban environment, somewhere around 30-60% of the bird species in your area will be non-native.

At bird feeders the percentage of individual visitors that are non-native is often much higher. The non-natives tend to be more generalist eaters, whereas the native specifies tend to stick more to their native diet which isn't as well served by most feeders.

By drawing in these generalist non-natives feeders tend to actually displace native birds from the surrounding area.

That's why when I was feeding birds I didn't really worry about cats getting into my yard. I couldn't think of a way to make a good argument that the line of how much harm it is OK to do to the native environment for your enjoyment is somewhere between the harm feeding non-native birds does and the harm the neighborhood cats do (especially since I've never seen a cat catch a bird in my yard).

Outdoor domestic cats should be illegal. They destroy the ecosystem. You should be thankful parent does not trap and kill the animals.

> You should be thankful parent does not trap and kill the animals.

you know how crazy you sound?

That’s genuinely what happens here.

what is genuinely what happens? stray cats are put down by animal control?

read the exchange in which i told someone they sounded crazy. understand it in context, and try to be less eager to blurt out your first reaction. god damn.

Your neighbors do not always share the same values towards invasive species as pets.

If you care about the environment you should not let your cat wander. If you don't care about that, you should not be surprised when others do.

capturing your neighbor's pets and killing them is a bit of serial killer behavior.

> Otherwise how the heck are owners supposed to ensure cats stay on their property?

I have an electric fence; cats sense it and avoid it. 20+ years without a cat getting off the property.

I didn't get an 'outside cat' that shits in my yard and kills my songbirds.

If you'd like that pleasure, you're welcome to it. You just don't get to inflict your particular masochist tendencies on your neighbors.

Your songbirds?

The irony of "control your animals" while referring to wild birds as "yours" is ... interesting.

is that the strongest argument you can add to the discussion? Grammar?

One spring a bird built a nest in a tree outside my 80 yr old grandmother's kitchen window. She watched the nest every day and then the eggs hatched. The next day a neighbor's outdoor cat climbed the tree and killed all the baby birds. My grandmother complained to the neighbors but they didn't see what the problem was. Oh well.

The problem is that cats have trouble detecting which birds have backstories.

No need to guess…

> In Faith's case, Wissner said, the neighbor apparently didn't realize the fence line and property line weren't the same

They still could have called, and the shelter could have as well.

Definitely agree on that. First thing I do is look for a tag/number. Taking the dog to a shelter is like Russian roulette, dog may get euthanized if nobody shows up looking for it within ?? days.

It’s weird because it’s like a series of well meaning people that dropped the ball on what was the most obvious action to take.

> Wording could be taken either way, and I could be wrong, but it almost sounds like the dog was not on the property of its owner, and was over the fence in the neighbours property?

The concept of being on ranch property gets a bit nebulous in Wyoming when you realize much private land is checkerboarded with blm land and the ranchers have long term blm grazing leases. The dog being outside the rancher's private property doesn't mean it's not out doing its job.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land)

> if one turns up on my property, I trap it and send it to the shelter specifically so the owner gets fined, even though I know who owns it.

I don’t know the full story here, but have you tried talking to your neighbor? Like, really tried in a way that takes their perspective seriously? Because what you’ve described here is essentially guaranteed to make the relationship worse and likely to cause other problems down the road. Heaven forbid you ever truly need this person’s help, you’re going to be in a tough spot.

Correct.

There's a big fluffy white dog in my neighbhorhood who has a talent for jumping the fence. I've returned him 3 times. This is not hard... once you determine he's friendly and just on an adventure the phone number is on his tag.

He's a good boy.

Talented dog

I guess it depends on the neighborhood but it never occurs to me to get involved in a situation like that, I figure he'll go home when he's hungry.

I would not bother 3rd time.

There are literally people in my apartment complex in California insisting we feed and provide water for the stray cats, squirrels, and raccoons (yes even the raccoons) because they "can't live on their own" and then are concerned when any of those turn up dead because local coyotes know where the food is.

Feed the raccoons sir or ma'am

Ask them if they're vegan.

Very dark but reminds me of a comment/joke/meme about someone having a conversation about adopting cats from the shelter, and then them being outdoor or indoor/outdoor, disappearing after a few weeks, and then them adopting another, same thing.

"Sounds like you're just feeding them to the coyotes."

I have one of these dogs. They’re basically treated like livestock in some places, not pets. Also they’re extremely clever and capable of having and executing on “ideas.” People put 2 GPS collars on them for a reason. It’s not inconceivable this one got loose, was in rough shape (covered in burrs, scratches, lean) and to anyone’s eyes needed to see a professional. But who knows, as you said.

Right - they're generally bred and trained to be independent. If they are out with a flock at night, even from a very young age, they need to make a decision on what to do about a perceived threat, to them, or the flock, without direction from a handler, or another member of their group (often times they will work in twos, a day shift and a night shift, and it's amazing watching how they just figure out their routine between them).

I've always had, and loved, large dogs - an Airedale/Wolfhound, then a Newfoundland, and now a Great Pyrenees. I love all of them but the GP basically feels like my dog now.

Honestly that tracks. People in the US are often very judgemental of the way others treat dogs, and will not hesitate to involve themselves.

> People in the US are often very judgemental of the way others treat dogs,

Maybe because the incidence of actual neglect and abuse is non-zero; and if you have an affinity for them, it’s hard to turn a blind eye. But I suppose it results in some situations that aren’t perceived accurately.

I think it would be better to do this with children than with dogs, and I wish more people did. Why do you think more people say this about dogs than children?

Because people care about dogs more than children, or people as a whole.

Well, to add to that, in many states, "neglect" isn't a crime. They're considered your property in most cases, and a lot of times it has to be "active physical abuse" before LE or Animal Services can step in.

> “She picked up what she thought was a stray dog that she thought was malnourished,” Wissner said.

Doesn't help that pet dogs spend much of their time laying down, with perhaps a couple brief respites in the form of a gentle walk.

They gain weight.

A healthy dog can often look malnourished to pet owners.

Our largest dog is extremely active. He is a great bird and rabbit dog and he runs and runs and runs when we're not hunting. He'll follow the tractor for miles back and forth in the field. He's skinny but, according to the vet, exactly where he should be in weight.

Our neighbor's mom called the animal warden on us for not feeding him. He eats better than I do.

Her dog is a morbidly obese miniature collie.

Most people's perspective of ideal animal shapes is incorrect.

> spend much of their time laying down, with perhaps a couple brief respites in the form of a gentle walk

relatable

The solution are polar bears that protect the dogs from being stolen. And anacondas to protect the bears from PETA.

While we are at it, blind guidedog users would like to remind you that you really shouldn't walk up to a working dog and stop the owner to pet the dog. They get their share of love, no worries. What you are doing right now is obstructing the owners path, stealing their time, and possibly confusing the dog to a point where you are creating a dangerous sitatuion. But, seriously, it is likely useless to tell such stories these days. Those people to selfish or stupid to do these acts will NEVER read these messages, nor will they actually understand whats going on.

I am not a rancher, but I do own a livestock guardian dog - Great Pyrenees. This breed is often raised with a flock of sheep from about 6 weeks of age (with mother present). They live with the flock, move with the flock and protect it. I did not know until I had one that they were (though there are variations) specifically bred to be white, not cream, so they'd more easily blend in with the flock (though there may be some logic I'm missing, as I thought them standing out might be a deterrent to the wolves they defend against).

> Wissner drove the 30 miles into Cheyenne to retrieve his working dog that had been taken from his property – and paid a fine to get her back.

Kinda sounds like the guy that stole the dog — and endangered a herd! — should get the fine.

I know nothing about such dogs or farms, but why would he allow the dog to go beyond the property fence, even though it was still his property? Why include that on the limits of the property that takes 1 to 2 years to teach?

Dog has free will, and it is impossible to make an dog-tight fence around an entire ranch.

Farming properties are large, grazing paddocks are much smaller and many - some are even "virtual" - defined by GPS shock collars on stock.

Dogs are smart and learn outer boundaries and roam looking for predators, stock are kept bounded and once an area is cropped (to some degree) they are moved to another grazing area.

Dogs are smart, curious, and capable. They also understand boundaries. If you have a large property it is surprisingly difficult to prevent a motivated dog from leaving it. Some dogs have a strong desire to go on a walkabout on occasion. Chaining a farm dog defeats their purpose, and is arguably inhumane, so for some of them it just comes with the territory.

We had one dog growing up that liked to commune with a particular herd of cattle (in a friendly way) in a distant field on occasion, and nobody and nothing could stop it when it had that inclination. Dog on a mission.

Sounds like they need GPS trackers on their collars. Or if cost is a concern, a simple air tag would do since most people 'rescuing' them likely have an iphone

Give that dog a Do Not Rescue collar.

It already had a collar with the owners details. They could have just contacted them.

God forbid animals should be allowed to have any freedom. As we all know, they best taken care of by forcing them to remain indoors 24/7.

We tried to adopt a cat once from a local shelter. If there was any indication that you would let the cat outside, for any period of time, they would reject the application. Also, if there was any indication you would ever leave the cat alone for 10 hours or more, they would reject the application. So, we left all those cats in the shelter, where there were almost certainly terminated, and bought a kitten from some random people on craigslist.

After that cat passed, we tried to adopt a dog from the local shelters. All required an interview and house visit, with random unscheduled visits within the 6 months after. We bought a puppy from some random kid.

edit: "any indication that you would let the cat outside" and "outdoor cat" are not the same thing. I failed because I said we had a patio we would let the cat sit on, in nice weather, on the second floor, or because we were going to see if we could leash train it (my friend had with his cat). I don't know, the lady seemed very angry the whole interview. The leash training failed before it made its way outdoors, but the sun was enjoyed.

You're allowed to lie on your application to the shelter. But you should also not let your cat outside because cats are bird murder machines.

A house visit to adopt a dog seems excessive. But this might be organizational scar tissue: mentally ill people adopting and hoarding animals, for example.

Depending on the jurisdiction, any adoption contract that says you have to allow unscheduled visits 6 months after may not be enforceable. Treat your adopted pet well and tell anyone who interferes to f off.

This is wild speculation and almost intentionally muddy.

- Cats are natural, suburb density is probably not. Homestead cats have a place as long as we stock food.

- Anything involving money to support AN org should have stringent red tape.

- telling people to fuck off is okay

By what metric are domesticated cats "natural"?

In a lot of ways typical farm cats are more natural than dogs. The distance between those cats and the undomesticated variety isn’t that wide.

Most domesticated cats demonstrably have no issues thriving while feral. They are not well-adapted to every environment they’ve been introduced but they do pretty well in many. Their main issue in places like North America is prodigious predation in the wild, which is mitigated when living near humans.

Farm cats are working animals, and they make up a tiny fraction of the “outside cat” population. Not really a fair comparison. Roaming/feral domestic cats in residential area are an invasive species and “do pretty well” the same way other pests do.

The shelter is doing its job: outdoor cats live a shorter life due to fights, cars, disease, predation, etc. And not only that, but they also decimate the local songbird population, which is already in great decline.

If songbirds are your concern, you'd do worlds more for them by getting your neighbors to replace their lawns with shrubbery than by fretting over a couple spoiled cats too stuffed with tinned food to catch anything.

Obviously you don’t actually have a feral cat population around you. They are generally good hunters that kill for sport. Cats, foxes, and humans are the only species that do that.

The discussion is about house cats and whether owners are obliged to keep them inside.

Feral cats have different behavior, and in fact having sterilized house cats marking and protecting territory tends to reduce the number of feral cats that take residence.

And yet they have the exact same effect on the local environment. Feral and free roaming cats are not meaningfully distinct except to their owners

Do you think people should let their dogs roam free?

That's simply not true, and as I wrote originally, habitat loss through human landscaping and chemical pest/weed control has an absurdly larger impact on bird population and diversity than all the guileless house cats that will ever prowl a neighborhood.

Bringing up habitat loss from humans is a classic whataboutism. Do you care about neighborhood dogs shitting in your yard? Cause I’m tired of cats doing it

And they dig up gardens and poop everywhere. People get so up in arms about dog owners not picking up poop on walks you’d think they would understand it’s not cool to let your cat do the same thing on other people’s property.

Outdoor domestic cats are a crime against nature (and songbirds).

Cats are a part of nature.

In some parts of the US outdoor cats are an essential bulwark against rodent invasion. It is healthy for the cats and very effective organic rodent control. They do get some birds but the bulk of their activity is rodents. There are places you can’t live without them.

Depending on the situation, outdoor cats can also live a long time. We had farm cats when I was growing up that spent a large part of their time outdoors during the day. They were smart, social, and typically lived 15-20 years before old age caught up with them.

Predation mostly impacts cats that are either obviously stupid or aggressively anti-social in my experience.

> Cats are a part of nature.

Domestic cats are only a part of civilisation, not nature.

> Predation mostly impacts cats that are either obviously stupid or aggressively anti-social in my experience.

In our neighborhood, the coyotes are very efficient at taking out any house cat outside after dark.

> Outdoor domestic cats are a crime against nature (and songbirds).

As much as red tailed hawks are. And crows (which I've watched eat songbirds).

Domestic cats aren't native to any part of North America. They are an invasive species.

Cats are non-trivial to contain in the owner's yard, and will attack other animals. Sometimes that is the intention (e.g. barn cats), other times is unwelcome attacks on wildlife (e.g. birds). My family also had to deal with vet bills due to a cat that attacked our dog. While I wouldn't consider letting a cat outdoors abusive, it is certainly disrespectful to neighbours.

The other thing about shelters is they often deal with animals from abusive or neglectful homes. Random visits are likely excessive, but they are just trying to prevent the animal from enduring the same situation with new owners (and likely trying to ensure the new owners can handle an animal that has a history of being abused).

When I was a kid we adopted two kittens from a local cat rescue. They made us sign a document saying we would never allow the cats outside. One got out when she was a few months old, and she developed an obsession with the outdoors and would spend hours each day scratching at the door and licking her fur off, and occasionally she would escape and us kids would chase her around the yard until we could get her back in. We did the exact same indoor cat enrichment activities with her and her sister, who never developed a desire to get out.

Eventually we took the one with the outdoors obsession to the vet who told us we could either put her on Prozac or start letting her out. At that point we started letting her out (in our quiet suburb nowhere near a major road), and she instantly became an extremely happy cat. Her sister lived as a happy indoor cat, while she would go out during the day and come in at night. She came back every night and they both lived to pass of kidney disease when they were 15.

I know a lot of people are extremely against cats going outside, but compared to some of my college friends who kept "emotional support" cats in minuscule dorm rooms, I would much rather let a cat out than imprison it. I don't really buy the songbird thing in built up suburbia.

Not all cats can even hunt. They all like to think the could, yelling at birds, but its an actual skill. Of all 10 cats I had over my life only 1 could actually hunt at all. Even that cat’s own brother could not hunt at all.

They are usually trained by their mother.

We're pretty sure her indoor sister could hunt but she couldn't. She never brought us a dead bird or mouse, and we watched her jump at and fail to catch birds frequently. Her sister would deliver us a mouse once a year or so.

I don't get it. I sooooo don't get it. I grew up in a rural area, we had many cats and we really loved all of them. Cats had complete freedom - they'd leave whenever they'd feel like it, they'd go wherever they wanted to go, engaged in social life with other cats including fights over territory and mates, hunted, played, explored, sometimes they'd be gone for days, but they'd always return, love us, stay with us and enjoy our company. I was so happy to let the cats be cats and I am not getting a new cat because I live in an apartment complex and I cannot let it be a cat there, I'd feel horrible about confining it to 40 square meters. I really like to think that the cats I owned got to be cats to its fullest. Unfortunately, they also haven't lived for long, with 4 years being tops due to stray dogs around, cars, other cats, etc, but I'd rather have it that way than treat it like a house fixture.

Oh, and we never took a cat from a shelter or from some other institution, we exclusively either adopted stray cats or took one from friends whose cat gave birth. We haven’t sterilized or castrated our cats either and were very responsible about giving away born kittens to people that will take care of them.

Some people like birds. If you look at the cat density in suburbs or villages it is essentially like a horror movie for birds. We feed those cats, so they can exist in a far higher density than the prey population would support but they still have the passion to kill every prey with gusto after toying with it for as long as possible.

This doesn't make sense to me. They like birds so much that they want all the cat owners to imprison their cats? But both cats and birds are wild animals. They eat and be eaten. Isn't it just how it works? For animals, it's just the full package.

Come off it, domestic cats are literally a separate species bred from captivity. It is not “imprisoning” them to keep them in their natural environment (the home). They are not native to any ecosystem.

Sure, if cats would sustain themself from birds that would be a different matter. We know how that looks: http://causalpatterns.org/resources/ecosystems/pdfs/s6_res_l...

But cats are being fed by the humans they keep and hunt for sports. There are soooo many more cats than would be sustainable by the bird population.

The reason for all the friction is that terrible people did terrible things to shelter animals. Is it perfect? No, but it is a situation with few better paths forward.

It's not even particularly good, let alone perfect. Shelters, in my experience, are the poster children for "the perfect is the enemy of the good". They would do a lot more good for the animals in their care by relaxing their standards.

Taken to the other extreme, you have feral dogs. We don't think of them much in urban areas, or even most rural areas, since we will rarely encounter anything more wild than a stray. Being stalked by a pack of feral dogs is not pleasant.

Couldn't the tag the dogs ? The picture indicates the dog has no tag.

That's a stock photo.

> According to Wissner, his dog was wearing a collar with a rabies tag and a halter bearing a plate with his name, address and contact information.

Maybe add a big old "Don't Rescue Me" tag to that collar.

> Faith, an Akbash whose job was to protect Wissner’s sheep from predators, was nowhere to be found.

> The sheep were still grazing on the other side of the fence, but their guardian had vanished.

> ...

> According to Wissner, his dog was wearing a collar with a rabies tag and a halter bearing a plate with his name, address and contact information.

The caption for the photo:

> Shepherdess Brittany Cole Bush with a herd of goats on the Arambel Ranch in western Wyoming. (Brittany Cole Bush)

We clearly need a New Internet Startup with the usual main business of subscriptions, ads and selling user data, with an ancillary side business of selling GPS dog collars.

Of course the collar needs to be a physical product that actually works, but if it doesn't, you can have AI hallucinate the coordinates. See, there's even a pretext for bringing AI in the mix, so why isn't this solved already?

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