The following pictures are pretty graphic.  Be sure you are prepared before you look.   Dogs and Coyotes are not kind when they attack livestock.  Basically, Coyotes kill for food while dogs kill for sport.  The people who owned the dogs who attacked our sheep loved them and probably never thought they were capable of doing what they did.  Just because a neighbor's dog seems gentle, they could still start playing and destroy a good chunk of your happiness and finances.  It's always good to have some protection for your livestock against such an event. These are just a few pictures that we took at the vet. hospital.  As I said earlier, we had 8 sheep that had injuries that were treated by our outstanding vet.  He didn't actually think many of them would live, but Icelandic sheep are so rugged and determined that they fooled him for sure.  We did lose Eliza Jane, but I suspect that her back was broken.  The quality of her life would have been so horrible if she had lived...well, I am sure it was a blessing in the end for both her and us.   It was only a week or two after the attack and we added our second Great Pyrenees Guard dog and soon after, she gave us a spectacular litter of Pyr pups.  We kept one male pup to help guard our flock, and then in October 2008, at the Kentucky Sheep and Wool Festival, we purchased a wonderful female Pyr. pup.   Now, we are again expecting a litter of Registered Pyrenees pups.  We hope to be able to help others in an effort to prevent tragedies like ours from ever happening.  The heartbreak and time and financial loss due to the dog attack on our farm are still very fresh in our minds.  When we hear dogs or coyotes in the night...well, I must admit right now, we still lose sleep.  I doubt the memory and worry will ever completely go away, but knowing that we have our competent LGD crew on duty helps SO much!  I seriously doubt that I'd ever get any sleep if we were without them.

Mazi.  This is the leg that was injured worst.  She eventually lost this leg as we had to have it amputated due to gangrene.   Notice the tendon had been stripped clean in spots and was held in place only by a tiny strip of flesh.

Eliza Jane.  Her injuries were very severe.  There were more places on her that had been damaged but this was the shot I got on my camera.   Eliza Jane died that night.

Surprise.  She had several similar injuries, plus the dogs chewed her ears off.  We didn't know if she would live and the idea of her ever walking again seemed pretty far-fetched at that time.

Deja.  This was one of her legs.  She healed up and is fine now.  There were just so many horrible injuries that we lost count on which sheep had what problems.  We just knew that we had a huge mess to deal with for several months.

This is just a sample of some of the injuries that we sustained in Feb. 2008.  That day has gone down as the worst day in our farming history.  We have done what we can to prevent something like this from happening again.  Adding up the vet bills, lost of life,  loss of many lambs,  time spent, and all the miscellaneous losses, we totaled the damages at over $10,000.   What a horrible day!

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