Just being chased by a dog can be a tragedy for ewes

There was a lot of anger by the woman whose sheep they were, and the others responding. Frustration born of a feeling of 'they don't care or understand', which I totally understand from the point of view of having owned ewes for many years and known the fear of having this happen to mine.

However, just being angry and probably rude to the dog owners doesn't achieve good results, and I did tentatively suggest that it may be that they really don't understand the consequences of letting their dogs in among the ewes, and that some graphic explanations may help.

Lowland ewes mostly carry twins, and in the last third of their pregnancy can easily abort one of both of their lambs as a result of just being chased.

They wouldn't show signs of this at the time, but at lambing a dead or a mummified lamb of a pair, would be evidence of some trauma in the previous weeks.

I once had the unhappy task of removing limb by limb and bit by bit a lamb that had died and rotted inside its mother. She was very sick and had to have antibiotics to recover, and the following season she was barren as her uterus was so scarred following the infection that she would always be barren. So her life was lost in the end too.

A shepherd's profit – or loss – is decided at lambing. Every dead lamb is money lost. No shepherd likes to lose any lambs, and even when you're rushed off your feet with ewes lambing non-stop a dead lamb is a very sad thing, for you and for the ewe who is primed for motherhood. However, not only would I try to temper the farmer's attitude to dog walkers, I would also like to moderate the dog walkers' attitudes.

Natural England's Countryside Code says: "Dog walkers should consider the farmer's needs. Farmland is privately owned, and although you are free to walk through farmers' fields without being a trespasser, farmers reserve the right to remove anyone from their land who they believe to be disruptive or otherwise a threat to their land or crops. A farmer may shoot a dog which is attacking or chasing farm animals without being liable to compensate the dog’s owner."

This is very stark, and nobody wants any pets shot, or livestock damaged, so the best thing to do is to understand each others' needs and be considerate.

Rosemary Allen is a retired livestock farmer living near Ellesmere