Alas! how many farmers who loved to have gentle-faced, soft-bleating sheep and gamboling lambs around the place have given a negative answer after trial and how many others have been deterred from sheep-raising by seeing the ravages of the unrestricted dog in some neighbor's flock!

The Department of Agriculture estimates that more than one hundred thousand sheep are annually sacrificed by the unrestricted dog. Some dogs kill one or two, others continue the attack until all the sheep are destroyed or crippled. Still others chase the flock till its members die from exhaustion.

Many of the States have laws under which taxes on dogs go into funds for the reimbursement of farmers for sheep killed or crippled. But the appraisers cannot take cognizance of the damage done to those members of the flock that escape actual destruction or injury from the teeth of the attacking brutes.

The dogs work both singly and in groups in attacking sheep, and often travel for miles. One sheep-killing dog can soon lead astray his associates of a whole neighborhood. Usually such a dog has no countenance, and the phrase "he looked like a sheep-killing dog," so often used by countrymen to describe some fellow's lack of ability to look another in the eye, is an expressive one to those who have seen such an animal.

Police Dog In Action At A Training Station.

Photograph by Public Ledger Service.

Until recent years, it was the bloodhound which invariably was associated in the public mind with the capture of criminals, but nowadays it is the police dog which is the animal guardian of law and order. Bold, indeed, is the burglar who will brave so tenacious and courageous an assailant as a well-trained dog of the breed here shown. A "graduate" dog of a training station is an important asset to any metropolitan police department.

Cesar, The Favorite Dog Of King Edward Vii, Marching Before The Foremost Kings And Princes Of The Earth In The Funeral Procession Of His Master (See Text, Tage 85).

Photograph by Paul Thompson.

Many suggestions have been advanced for overcoming the attacks of dogs upon flocks. One of these is that the sheep be driven to a sheepfold every night - a burdensome measure.

.Another suggestion is that dog-tight fences be built. Such fences call for barbed wire at the bottom and the top, and any one who has seen horses cut to pieces in such a fence wonders whether there are not better means.

Some farmers have improved conditions by teaching their young dogs to respect the sheep and the sheep to defend themselves. It is striking how much respect for the prowess of a ram can be put into a puppy by two or three vigorous buttings from his ramship; but not less surprising how much courage an old ram can muster who has taught a puppy or two their place.

The dogs that are homeless and the ones that are permitted out of bounds are a menace not only to the sheep industry, but to the health of man and beast as well. So great is this menace that the United States Department of Agriculture says there is a growing conviction that while his innate qualities and the fund of affectionate sentiment which attaches to him warrant the preservation of the dog with a responsible owner, who will keep him clean and free from vermin of all sorts, holding him within reasonable bounds and restraint and assuming responsibility for his acts, on the other hand, the ownerless dog, the dog that carries vermin and disease, the dog that kills sheep or destroys property of any sort - the trespassing dog - must be eliminated.