Quote Originally Posted by Fat and Forty View Post
Mam Tor Ewe.jpg
Unfortunately this ewe is no longer with us, to quote the owner of the dog that ripped half its face off after chasing it from the top of Mam Tor "my 8yr old niece was holding the lead". Having descended Mam Tor (Castleton side) to retrieve the "dog" he was unwilling to check on the ewe and very keen to climb back up again to reunite the dog with the children in his group (a 3yr old, a 5yr old and an 8yr old). I am sure the they would have enjoyed wiping the blood and gore from their "pets" mouth. I was able to summon the farmer and his mates were very keen to see the photo I took of the owner, they went to look for him, fingers crossed for an appropriate outcome.
It sounds like you would like nothing better than for the dog to be shot! Its horrible that the dog did the attack and I'm in no way condoning that but the chap, having got his dog back under control, was probably worried by having to leave his three children (aged 3, 5 and 8) alone on the top of Mam Tor while he did so. The kids would have been horrified and traumatised too and he was probably (rightly) worried sick about them, not to mention his dog's life too in the hands of an angry farmer and his 'mates'.

In the circumstances the dog owner was caught between a rock and a hard place and probably couldn't have done right one way or the other, having failed so abysmally to control his dog in the first place.

And for just a little bit of perspective the real value of that ewe to the farmer might just be in the deadweight at market of lost lambs - aren't something like 15 million sheep/lambs slaughtered each year in the UK? Again there's no excuse for the dog attack other than horrible accidents do sometimes happen and hopefully a really hard lesson has been learned (at the poor ewes expense). And even more hopefully the chap will now contact the farmer and offer compensation and sincere apologies