The dogs of war

WHEN Sally Flintoft came downstairs after taking a telephone call last Saturday, she was crying. The call had been from an anonymous animal rights activist, threatening to firebomb her house.

It had been intended for her husband, Raymond. "But they didn't speak to me," he says. "It was my wife. She came down in tears. It was a cowardly thing to do."

Few would disagree. The call was universally condemned, by animal rights supporters as much as anybody else. But it was a sign of just how deep feelings were running after the conclusion of a controversial court case in which Mr Flintoft, 42, of Bransdale, Fadmoor, who farms at Pockley, near Helmsley, was cleared of all charges after shooting two dogs he had seen attacking his sheep.

It was a case that cuts to the heart of rural life, in which a woman's shock and horror at seeing her beloved pet shot dead in front of her and virtually on her own doorstep was balanced against a farmer's right to protect his livestock.

Most people, on hearing what Mr Flintoft had done, would be shocked. One day in March, he had seen two dogs savaging sheep at his farm. He shot one of the animals there and then, and followed the other, a six-month-old Jack Russell named Moses, back to the nearby home of its owner, Vanessa Cecil. There, he shot Moses too.

Mrs Cecil was understandably horrified. "What would you do if a man came to your door and blasted a shotgun four feet from you?" she says. "It gave me such a shock. It was a scary moment."

So scary that the former wife of racehorse trainer David Cecil, a countrywoman through and through, says she's now thinking of moving away. "I feel I have to lock my doors now and watch my back all the time," she says.

Hear the story from Mr Flintoft's point of view, however, and it becomes more possible to understand how he could have been driven to such an action.

Two of his ewes, which were heavily pregnant and about to lamb, had already been killed by the same two dogs the day before, he says. The second day, when they returned, he took his gun with him.

The sight that met his eyes was horrifying. The two dogs, Moses and a two-year-old terrier named Otis, were chasing his flock of pregnant ewes. They seized one of the terrified animals. "One dog was ripping its throat out, the other dog was on its back," Mr Flintoft says. "I shouted as hard as I could, but these dogs were too intent on killing. Absolutely frenzied killing. They didn't even look at me."

He shot Otis there and then, followed Moses back to Mrs Cecil's home, and shot him too. It wasn't something he enjoyed. "The last thing I want to do is shoot dogs. I regret it. It was a sad job. But I had no option.

"Once a dog has killed, it will go back and do it again. That was what they had done. They had killed the day before, then gone back."

In two days, the dogs killed eight ewes and their unborn lambs, he says.

"There were sheep lying dead all over the field. There was one on its back, they had ripped its stomach open. There were two lambs they had ripped out. Those lambs were still alive, but the ewes were dead. The lambs soon died too."

He wasn't the only farmer to have had problems with the dogs, he insists - neighbouring farmers had too. And he is convinced that if the animals had been left alive they would have struck again.

Magistrate Keith Taylor seems to have agreed. Clearing Mr Flintoft at Pickering magistrates court of unlawful trespass and unlawful killing of Moses, he said: "We believe you had reasonable cause, having witnessed two dogs in the act of killing sheep."

On the face of it, it's a classic case of farmer against dog lover - of our instinctive love for dogs as pets balanced against a farmer's right to protect his livestock. It's an illustration, too, of the awful consequences that can result if a pet gets out of control.

Rob Simpson, Yorkshire spokesman for the National Farmers' Union, points out that something like 10,000 farm animals are killed or injured in dog attacks every year in the UK and Northern Ireland. "People very much have a soft spot for dogs," he says. "But it does have to be remembered that dogs have evolved from wolves and ultimately they still have the natural instinct to chase sheep."

He agrees with Mr Flintoft that once a dog has killed, it develops a taste for killing. "That's why in law a farmer is allowed to shoot it."

Organisations like the ramblers and the RSPCA agree that in the countryside dog owners need to be responsible and ensure pets are kept properly under control. That applies equally to town dwellers out walking for the day with their pets and to pet owners living in the countryside, stresses RSPCA spokesperson for Yorkshire Heather Holmes.

"Think of the distress to the livestock, and of how incredibly distressing it is for a farmer to see his livestock being savaged," she says. "It's not on."

Mrs Cecil stresses that she has lived with animals all her life, and understands the countryside. She is the last person who would want sheep to be hurt. "I have saved half these people's sheep when they are stuck in fences," she says.

But she says she simply had no idea her dogs had been causing a problem. It was usual for them to be allowed to roam, but they were used to sheep and she never thought they would attack. "They were raised with sheep," she says.

According to Rob Simpson, however, it is precisely such 'latch key' dogs - pets owned by people who themselves live in the countryside who are allowed to roam free from the house - who cause many of the problems. "If you allow a dog out, particularly in rural areas, you have no idea what it is doing," he says.

Whatever the rights and wrongs, Mrs Cecil believes that the court case should have been about something far more than simply sheep and dogs. For her, the important issue was guns, and what is and is not safe and acceptable behaviour.

"He came and I did not know who he was, and he blasted his gun three times," she says. "The verdict was appalling. It has licensed anyone to do the same thing. The law condones this, but I'm afraid I don't."

Raymond Flintoft, meanwhile, is just relieved it is all over and his life can get back to something like normal, animal rights activists permitting.

"The magistrate saw common sense in the end," he says. "All I was doing was protecting my stock. I'm relieved. It was a very worrying time, a terrible time, and there has been a lot of stress."

Updated: 10:40 Thursday, July 04, 2002