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Talking with a friend recently about how "wild" our pet dogs are. In the local area, dogs get out at night and form packs that hunt calves and lambs and simply kill them and leave the bodies.

There is a good business in hunting feral cats and dogs that were pets and have been left to fend for themselves in the wild because they were no longer wanted.




It's changed as the demographics shifted and the county urbanized but thirty years ago the local sheriff still issued deputy animal control papers to hunters, farmers, woodsmen, etc. who reported dog packs. There are fewer farms, greater housing density, more posted land, revised laws, and different attitudes toward animal control (generally, better) but the problem still occasionally comes up. Feral dogs aren't just a semi-rural problem, this was the situation in Brooklyn https://gowanuslounge.blogspot.com/2007/07/dog-days-remember... and resulted in a handful of publicized attacks on joggers and pets.


The dogs I referred to are not feral as such. They are pets to someone. It is when they get together in packs that their behaviour goes wild. The owners are often unaware that their dogs have wandered about and partaken in killing of stock.

It is also applicable to cats.


Yup, many dog owners I know are shocked to find out that it's legal in most states to kill a dog that's harassing livestock(hasn't yet done physical harm).


Here the feral dog problem is solved enough that there's a substantial population of rabbits living in town.

(a small town in a rural county)




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