This is not the first time that a pack of dogs has attacked farmers’ animals. I have heard about many instances of such happenings. I was lucky that one night they could not get at my rabbit pen as the door was made of metal. But they did get at my neighbour’s chickens. They killed each and every one of them.

They did not kill him because he was holding a thick wooden stick when he went at them.

The dogs get into the habit of these marauding sprees, although luckily not so often. This happens when one of them goes into the packing bark. This cry calls all dogs within hearing distance and literally invites them to go hunting. I experienced this cry when a friend of mine used to go hunting for rabbits with his rabbit hunting dogs. These used to start whining a special cry. No sooner do they start it than you would see other dogs joining the pack. These dogs have a multiple of barks which indicate various situations in the hunt, such as raising, cornering and losing the rabbit.

Unfortunately, no one can do anything about these dogs when they get into the habit of going hunting on their own. More than one friend of mine has lost animals to such packs.

One of them lost 12 sheep in one night – they got into a closed pen by digging under the concrete doorstep.

The only solution is to get rid of them if you catch them. Their wolfish instincts have got the better of them and no amount of education will bring them back to civilised domestication. But we do not have to tell our friends the farmers what to do.