Dealing With Dog Attacks
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One of the most traumatic things that can occur with livestock is a dog attack, especially with small ruminants. Aggressive dogs can cause severe damage.
Whether you keep your goats in smaller pens or large pastures, the risk of dogs or wild canids attacking your stock is always present. While no one expects to come home to disaster, being prepared can ensure injured animals receive rapid and appropriate care.
Know Your Veterinarian
Perhaps the most important thing your animals will need in an emergency is a herd veterinarian. Unfortunately, livestock veterinarians are in short supply. Having a current relationship with a local veterinarian will allow for quick response in emergent situations. Most veterinarians consider a current relationship to involve a yearly herd health examination. If you haven’t seen your herd veterinarian in over a year, now is the time to re-establish that contact.
Removing the guesswork of who to call and how to treat injured animals makes stressful situations easier to deal with. Even in the case of mild injury, having an established veterinarian will give you access to antibiotics and pain medications.
Keep Calm
Coming home to a dog attack can result in panic. However, keeping calm and assessing the situation thoroughly and quickly will ensure your animals receive swift and appropriate care. If there’s extreme trauma, an emergency call to your herd veterinarian must be made immediately.
After making that phone call, all animals should be moved into an area that allows for low-stress appraisal. Animals that are injured but still mobile should be brought into smaller, individual pens for thorough examination and treatment.
How to Handle a Dog Attack
- Upon arrival at the scene of a canine attack, goats are often severely injured. Assessing the injuries and offering appropriate first aid can improve the likelihood of recovery. Canines can cause serious puncture wounds and lacerations, fractures to limbs, and even heat stress or exhaustion. If an animal can’t rise or move, the cause of the goat’s lack of mobility should be assessed carefully before moving them to a safe place for medical care.
- In the case of severe damage to your goats, it’s hoped the herd veterinarian can quickly respond and offer appropriate consultation and treatment. Lacerations can require sutures and even surgical drains. Depending on the location, fractures may require casting or surgical fixation. Animals with heat stress may require intravenous fluids to stabilize them before they can get up. Unfortunately, dogs can do such severe damage to goats that the only humane option for treatment is euthanasia.
- Clip the hair away from any puncture wounds once the animal is stable. Pack large wounds with petroleum jelly or sterile lubricant before clipping to prevent hair from sticking to the exposed tissues. After clipping away hair, gently clean the exposed tissue with a disinfectant such as dilute povidone iodine or chlorhexidine if heavily soiled. It can be packed again with a moisturizing lubricant, or your veterinarian may recommend a topical antibiotic such as a triple antibiotic or silver sulfadiazine (SSD). Topical sprays, such as blue cote and scarlet oil, aren’t recommended.
- Unstable limbs with suspected fractures should be wrapped in well-padded but supportive bandages. Using a splint and elastic bandage without proper padding can reduce blood flow to damaged limbs. Ensure adequate padding with cotton or other bandage material is applied before using the splint and elastic bandage material. If you’re unsure how to use a splint or bandage appropriately, you should await direction from your veterinarian.
- Various medications may be recommended for goats after an attack. Puncture wounds have a high risk for tetanus infection. If it’s been several months since the goat’s tetanus vaccination, your veterinarian may recommend a booster. Depending on the severity of the damage, your veterinarian may also prescribe systemic antibiotics and anti-inflammatories. With all systemic antibiotics now available as prescription only, it’s another good reason to maintain a relationship with your veterinarian.
- Anti-inflammatories, such as flunixin and meloxicam, can help with pain and swelling. This can improve the recovery immensely. In areas with high rabies risk, if your herd isn’t vaccinated against rabies, they may require immediate post-exposure vaccination. This is especially true if the offending canines can’t be located or show signs of neurologic disease. No rabies vaccine is licensed for use in goats; however, the vaccine for sheep has proven effective. Rabies isn’t a recommended core vaccine for goats but may be suggested by your veterinarian, depending upon the potential risk.
- If the offending canine or canines are still present upon your arrival and don’t belong to you, take photos to allow for proper identification by the local animal control authorities. Since attacks by stray dogs can cause serious damage to goats, involving the authorities can aid in an accurate assessment of the situation. If the canines show signs of aggression toward humans, one should wait for assistance from the proper authorities rather than risk being bitten.
In the event your goats are attacked by dogs, it’s important to remain calm and assess the situation. Contacting your veterinarian and the appropriate animal control authorities will ensure your animals receive proper care and that the perpetrators are effectively managed. In rural areas, removing the attacking canines with the help of firepower is often recommended. Check to be sure this is legal in your area. However, working with animal control authorities can reduce the risk of unhappy neighbors in the case of stray pets. It may even provide grounds for the dog owners to provide restitution to the goat owner.
DR. KATIE ESTILL DVM is a veterinarian consultant for Goat Journal, Countryside & Small Stock Journal, and Countryside online. She works with goats and other large livestock at Desert Trails Veterinary Services in Winnemucca, Nevada.
Originally published in the 2024 Summer issue of Goat Journal and regularly vetted for accuracy.