THESHEEP-KILLING DOG.
This animal is extremely pernicious and detrimental, wherever he exists, for when once a Dog takes to killing sheep, he seldom or never leaves the practice off, in which he is extremely shy, and it is a very difficult matter to put a stop to his proceedings till you can discover his owner, which is no easy task, for if once he perceives you are tracing him home, he will go two or three miles another way.
If it happens that he should come in the night, and destroy any of your lambs or sheep, the circumstance becomes very alarming, and the farmer generally moves his sheep into another field or place, this certainlywill baulk him for some small time, till he finds them again, and then the consequence is as bad as ever; I would therefore advise not to move your flocks at all, for the following reason, that by this means you may be the sooner able to destroy him. To this end, go early in the morning into the field where the sheep are, which is always customary, every morning, among the farmers, then you will find whether he has been amongst and killed any of them: if you perceive this to be the case, inspect carefully all round the field, whether you can track, or see the print of his feet, at any gate, stile, or gap, if there be one, if you look carefully it is ten to one but you trace his footsteps; this being done, you may prepare for him against night in the following manner: get two good steel traps, set one of them by the side of the gate, stile, or gap, where you imagine he enters, within side of the field, in the same manner as before directed for the fox in a cube trap, and cover the same, but do not handlethe mould; then take the liver of the sheep or lamb he has devoured, cut them into slices, fry them in some good dripping, and put them on the back part of the cube; then take a piece of the flesh of the sheep or lamb, and rub it all about the gate or stile,&c.in order that he may be allured by the scent; then set another trap in the same manner at a different gate, for fear he should not come in the same way: a farmer is sometimes at a loss for these traps, but if he lives adjacent to any warren, he may easily borrow two of the true sort; but for fear of an accident it would not be amiss for the farmer to have them always by him. The above directions being put into execution, get a sheep’s paunch and draw a trail all round the field, as you do for the fox, and draw it up close to the mouth of each cube or trap, and by these means I have frequently catched several of them.
In some country places where they have none of the aforesaid traps, people are at aloss how to proceed, the subsequent method will supply their place in some measure, and be attended with success; when you have discovered in the morning, that he has been among the sheep over night, get some good dripping as big as a tennis ball, rasp two good figs of nux vomica, and mix them together, stiffened with a little flour; make several of these balls, and at evening trail a sheep’s paunch, tied to a string, to each gate, stile, or gap, where you imagine he enters, putting one of these balls at every place, fixt on the top of a small piece of stick, about six inches high, with the other end in the ground, which will prevent the mice from eating it; when you have trailed to one place, there stick the ball, trailing on to the next in like manner, till you have gone quite round the field; let this be done just at dark, and go again in the morning, and observe how many balls are gone, the remaining ones take up, and put them down again at night, and so proceed till you find he has swallowed some of them, ofwhich there is no fear if he chance to come.
I have sometimes been greatly embarassed in catching him, though I have fully discovered the place at which he came into the field to destroy the sheep; for he was so extremely shy that he would not follow the trail, nor touch any bait laid for him. I then took the following method,viz.just at the gate where he came in, I procured two radded hurdles and put them close at one end, top and bottom; and at the extremity of the end so closed, I tied a live lamb, and at the other end where the opening was I set two steel traps close by each other, and in the room they did not fill up, I placed a large bush to supply the vacancy. These traps were covered very nicely, in the same manner as for the fox; the plan succeeded, and the arch thief was happily taken. If it should be a Dog that comes, procure some of the urine of a proud bitch, and rub it about the trail, or the bait, whichwill infallibly bring him on, let him be ever so shy, and induce him to go boldly up to the trap and be caught.