A farmer who lost 50 sheep in a County Offaly dog attack has said he can still see them all “scattered across the field”.

The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) this week launched its annual ‘No Dogs Allowed’ campaign, warning owners that dogs are not allowed on farmland.

The campaign accuses the Government and Local Authorities of ignoring the ‘deepening issue of dog attacks on livestock’ and claim a lack of enforcement has allowed attacks to “persist and increase” across the country.

On The Pat Kenny Show this morning, Offaly farmer John Healy said he is still traumatised from a dog attack on his flock that led to the death of 50 of his sheep.

He said it is “hard to put into words” the impact of a dog attack on a farmers.

“You'd be devastated,” he said. “You put all this work into [your flock] and you go up and you just see carnage in the field,” he said.

“It's a dreadful experience to come across for anyone. Let it be one sheep or what I had, 50.

“It's just an appalling thing, it sticks in your mind.

“To this day, I can still see them all scattered across the field. It's just traumatic.”

Attack

He said he first learned something was wrong when he got a call to say one of his sheep was in the street.

When he sent his two sons up to the field, they saw two black dogs attacking the sheep.

To this day, he does not know who owned the dogs or where they came from.

“That was the only lead we ever got on it,” he said. “There was no trace.

“The Gardaí in fairness would have done a good bit of searching around the local area for the dogs that we've described but there was nothing in the area that matched up to the description my sons had, so we never found out anything.”

Mr Healy said he was not insured at the time and had to take on the financial burden as well as the trauma of losing his animals.

He said little has changed since the attack and just last week, he confronted five men on his land who were hunting with lurchers.

The silhouette of a man walking his dog stands out against the morning sky, 07-01-2014. Image: JULIAN STRATENSCHULTE |

Also on the show, IFA Sheep Chairperson Adrian Gallagher said more must be done to force dog owners to take responsibility for their animals.

“The government has an obligation here,” he said. “There's laws out there but the law needs to be enforced.”

“You're obliged to microchip your dog, you're obliged to have your dog licenced and you're obliged to keep your dog under control all the time.

“These are laws that are just not governed and they're not adhered to and there's very, very few people fully complying with these laws.”

Shooting

Mr Gallagher said farmers are legally permitted to shoot a dog if they ‘catch it in the act’.

Under the legislation, a farmer is only permitted to shoot a dog if he can prove the dog was “worrying or was about to worry livestock” and that there were “no other reasonable means of ending or preventing the worrying.”

The farmer can also shoot the dog if they can prove it was a stray that was near a place where livestock had been injured or killed and he can show that he reasonably believed the dog was involved.

In that scenario, they must also show that there was no practical way to seize the dog or find out who owned it.