Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1889 — CONNECTICUT’S 29,000 DOGS. [ARTICLE]

CONNECTICUT’S 29,000 DOGS.

They Are * Profit to the State m Spite of the Sheep killers. NewYoikSun. * c Connecticut makes a neat profit out of her dogs. There are alittle more than 29,000 registered dogs in the State, of which 1,679 are females, and the tax received from them last year amounted to $39,043. From this sum is to be subtracted nearly SIO,OOO which was paid to owners of sheep which had been hounded to death by unruly dogs during the year, and a clear balance of $30,000 remains. The dog tax is one of the most cheering speculations that Connecticut has ever undertaken, though the dog fancier is exceedingly to it. Most of the sheep killing isdoneTn the three eastern counties of the State, where large droves of sheep pasture on the hillsides and in the brushy lowlands, and where fox-hounds are numerous, it being well known that aside from the fox chase a fox hound likes nothing better than to gallop after and butcher a flock of sheep and he will do SIOO of damage in a very few moments. He kills for the mere love of butchery, and after he has dispatched a sheep by one quick, cruel snap of his jaws, as he canters alongside of the terror-stricken animal, he rarely mutilates the carcass. He leaves the sheep where it falls, and instantly is off after a fresh victim. In the single town of Libson, a few miles north of Norwich, the State distributed the sum of S9OO in two ~ months this winter to owners of sheep killed by dogs, and a farmer at Plain Hill, three miles from Norwich, is able to keep his five large flocks intact only by ceaseless vigilance. He keeps a double-barreled shotgun, heavily loaded with big shot, constantly ready at his kitchen door, and as soon as he hears the baying of hounds in the neighborhood of his pasture he snatches up his gun and is away to the field. Dogs meet with no quarter at his hands, no matter how fine their pedigree or great their value to their owners, and seldom returns from a dog chase With less than one dead hound. Not long ago he heard an uproar at the further end of his pasture one morning, and, seizing his gun, set out, hatless, coatless and vestless, for the scene. When he arrived there two big foxhounds were loping after his flock and mercilessly slaughtering his sheep, three expiring; they already lay panting with bleeding throats on the gray sward. The farmer got a hound with each barrel, and took the carcasses down to his house. He received full value for the slain sheep from the State, and kept their carcasses besides. If a sheepkilling dog can be identified, his owner is responsible for the damage wrought by him. « Sheep killing dogs were a terror to Sheep raisers for years, and many farmers had, abandoned the industry, when the dog law was passed, which was ample protection to them. The tax on female dogs is very much heavier than on males.