THE mauling of a pet dog on a Tambo property last week has brought home to locals the increasing boldness of wild dogs, which are now just as likely to be found in packs as individual animals.
The Smith family at Rumleigh have been hearing dogs howling at night regularly but were woken in the early hours last week by an “almighty dust-up” between three or four wild dogs and their Jack Russell.
Jorden Smith said when he went to investigate, the animals were less than 100m from the house.
He said the Jack Russell stayed in the house at night and would only have gone out to protect its patch. It was rushed to the vet at Charleville but couldn’t be saved.
“There have been a lot more dogs here in the last 12 months,” Jorden told Queensland Country Life.
“We used to hear them once a month, now it’s every night.”
As part of the Lansdowne syndicate he has taken part in controlled shootings from a helicopter, which he believed was very effective when numbers built up, as it could cover a lot of country.
He was also seeing bait being taken from bait stations, and said that fencing seemed to be working for those who had invested in it.
“Our calving percentages are okay at the moment but we know it will go down as sheep numbers dwindle around us,” he said.
