Meet the farmer taking a proactive approach to sheep worrying

A farmer and a gundog trainer have joined forces to take a preventative approach to livestock worrying by dogs.

Based near Steyning in West Sussex, mixed arable and sheep farmer Shannon Eales has a flock of about 400 breeding ewes, which she is currently in the middle of lambing.

Shannon has always owned and trained Labradors, working closely with her friend and full-time gundog trainer Kate Bollen.

See also: Farmers Weekly lambing gallery: Best snaps of 2024

With Shannon being a shepherd and Kate a trainer, the pair found themselves inundated with requests from dog owners who were worried about their dog’s chase drive, or had concerns that their pets were badly behaved around livestock.

“It was something that we were hearing again and again,” Shannon explains.

“We spoke between ourselves and decided to hold a course to explain to people the damage their dogs can do, and make them a bit more aware of the countryside.

“We explain what we are doing [as farmers] so that when they are walking through a field of sheep, they know they are walking through store lambs, or ewes in lamb, or ewes with lambs at foot, and how much damage their dog could do.”

The pair have been running courses for three years to try to take a preventative approach to dog attacks on livestock, and the sessions have proven to be a huge success.

This year they have so far held four sessions, split across two days with more than 40 owners attending, coming from as far afield as Manchester and parts of Wales.

“It’s never the dog – we are massive believers that it is always the owner,” says Shannon. “Another thing that we stress is that no farmer wants to have to go out and dispatch a dog.”

© Shannon Eales

Training

The training sessions take place on Shannon’s farm, where she has set up two neighbouring paddocks – one for the sheep, and one for the dogs.

“I’m quite specific with the sheep that I select,” Shannon explains. “A lot of them are old bottle lambs that we have maintained, being really tame.

“They are frequently around my own dogs, so they are almost a bit cocky with dogs. They’re not stressed in the situation at all.”

The dogs are walked past the sheep on leads, before being put onto a longline training lead to practice doing a sit and recall around the livestock.

“They are on leads at all times,” explains Shannon. “They have the opportunity to go wrong, which we can then address, but the situation is under control.

“We work them up really slowly and eventually go into the field and up to the pen where the sheep are.

“The sheep are all tame and confident, and I put a bit of food into a bucket, so they are far more interested in that. This gives the dogs a chance to go up and have a bit of a sniff.”

As a final exercise, Shannon lets the sheep out and works them with her sheepdog, moving the flock so that they are walked around the dogs and their owners.

“At this point, if the dog is in the field with the owner then it is completely relaxed,” explains Shannon. If not, they will remain in the paddock.

“It’s quiet, it’s not exciting – we want the dogs to think the sheep are boring. It is constant exposure.”

Challenging breeds

Dog owners from all walks of life, age ranges, and with different breeds have attended the sessions – but working dogs such as spaniels, vizslas and pointers tend to show up a lot.

“We see a lot of highly strung working dogs trying to fit into a pet home dynamic, which tends to make people go to the bigger spaces like the South Downs because they want to give their dog room to run,” explains Shannon.

“I think that is where they end up with their dogs going off and finding their own amusement,” she says.

“We don’t guarantee that the dogs will leave the course ‘sheep-proof’, but we hope it gives owners a better understanding and a little bit of insurance for that one day that they do go down the footpath, and find that somebody has put sheep out. 

“They will hopefully have one or two recalls that can prevent all of this happening, because their dog has had a bit of exposure and desensitisation.”