Snowball is one of my best dogs. I got him free from some cousins in Wyoming. He was probably going to be culled because he was unwanted. I brought him back from the sub-zero freezing temperatures of Wyoming to the warm weather of Texas, along with two of his siblings.
Unfortunately, Snowball is the only one left after a year and a bit. One of the other puppies died a few days after coming on to my land. The other puppy disappeared. I can only hope that one of my neighbors started feeding him.
Regardless, Snowball is a good guard dog for my land. As far as these dogs go, he is relatively calm and patient. However, something about dogs is that they have a pecking order. The dominant dog must assert its dominance, and the submissive dog must submit. The whole affair looks brutal to us, but most of the time it only involves snarling and growling and play-bites.
The problem with sheep and dogs is that sometimes the dog decides to assert dominance on the sheep, and so begins the dance with snarls and growls. The sheep doesn’t understand what that means, and so the dog gets physical. Normally, another dog would roll over on his back and whimper and beg for mercy at that point, or, alternatively, there would be a dog fight until one of the dogs decided to be submissive. Sheep don’t do this. The response of a sheep to a snarling growling dog is either to run away or to try and butt heads. In both cases, it is going to end badly for the sheep.
I wasn’t there to witness it, but I believe when I left some dog food in the field, one of my sheep probably tried to eat it. Snowball probably got upset and tried to assert dominance. The sheep didn’t roll over on her back and whimper, but instead tried to run or worse, head butt Snowball. So Snowball grabbed what he could — the ear, and eventually cut the sheep with his teeth.
I can probably train Snowball not to do this, but for now the sheep are scared of Snowball and Snowball knows it. He hasn’t been near the sheep for several days now. Most of all, I should be very careful not to leave food for the dogs out where the sheep can get to it.