Confronting "Dog Men"?

FrenchieBoy

Well-Known Member
Have you ever had the need to confront "dog men" (men with terriers and lurchers) on your permissions and if so how did you handle the situation?

I was faced with a "situation" yesterday which put me in a difficult position where I had to act on behalf or (And on the request of) the landowner where I have "sole permission". I should add that this land owner (Lynne) is a personal friend of my family!
It all started on Saturday when I got a phone call from the Lynne saying that she had been approached by a shooter (A member of this forum) who had been contacted by a neighbouring smallholder (who only rents a small field of about 3 or 4 acres) to try to deal with a problem fox. The shooter/SD member had the good common sense and courtesy to visit Lynne to confirm that it was OK to cross her land to try to shoot the "rogue fox". The landowner explained that I had the sole permission on her land but as he had come quite a long distance she would allow him to go on her land after the fox that evening as a "one off permission". Lynne phoned me straight away and told me as she was concerned that her action might upset me. I told her not to worry as it was after all her land and that I had no problem with it as long as he did not disturb the roe deer that had fawns in the wood. As for the shooter/member of SD if you read this please be reassured that I have no issue with you in any way, especially as you had the good sense to visit and speak to Lynne first even though you had been told by the smallholder that it would be OK to go on Lynne's land.
The brown stuff hit the fan yesterday morning (While i was out on another permission doing some rabbit shooting) when I got another phone call from Lynne! She told me that she had received a text from the smallholder saying that she had some lads with dogs coming and that they were going to be having a "mooch about looking for foxes through the woods and on the rest of lynne's land"! Lynne thought this was well out of order and that I should be "aware of the situation immediately" and because I had sole permission maybe I might like to "keep an eye on things". I thanked her for letting me know and packed in the rabbit shooting and went straight home to get my head cam and then went straight to Lynnes property.

After walking around for about half an hour and watching a couple of the roe deer while chatting to an innocent (And very polite) dog walker I spotted the three lads with dogs crossing the fence onto my permission. I made my appologies to the dog walker for having to rush off and immediately turned my head cam on to record and went straight towards the lads with the dogs. (My rifle was already unloaded and made safe)!
When they saw me they made no attempt to avoid me or hide, and walked straight towards me. When we met I straight away politely asked them if they had permission to be on the land with their dogs. (They had a large lurcher and three terriers as well as a spade to dig with) They said that they did have permission so I asked who they had got the permission from. Their reply was that they had permission from the smallholder in the caravan. My reply was "Unfortunately you do not have permission to be here as the smallholder has no authority to give you permission on this land which she does not own or have anything to do with and that the land is owned by Mrs ***** **** who lives in the house that they could see above us! Their reply was that the smallholder had told them that she had asked Lynne if it was Ok and that she had been told that it was fine - (Which I knew straight away was a downright lie from the small holder)
They tried to argue the point a little (One of them did start to get a little "bolshy and mouthy" until he realised that I had a head cam running) but I explained that there was no question about it, they were plain and simply trespassing and I and the landowner would like them to leave straight away - and certainly not via the woods as there is no public footpath through the woods.

With that they did leave and went back round the outskirts heading towards the smallholders caravan.

The landowner phoned me shortly afterwards and I told her what had been said and was all on video and that the "sitaution had been dealt with" and that they had left the property.

Now the way that I see it is that even though these three lads were trespassing it was not directly their fault as they were in the belief that permission had been granted for them to be there. However the land that they had been on prior to coming on to my permission I know that they did not have permission on either as it is yet another of my permissions.

What would you have done if you found and confronted "dog men" on your permission, and of course given these circumstances who would you judge to be in the wrong?

(I do have the full "confrontation" on video but I would rather not release it for public viewing unless I have to, and even then not until the landowner has had a chance to see it)

p.s. If the moderators feel this thread is in the wrong section please do feel free to move it!
 
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What would you have done if you found and confronted "dog men" on your permission, and of course given these circumstances who would you judge to be in the wrong?


Illegal pig dogging is the largest threat to my rural enterprise. Way more than drought or fire. I always respect the law, but at the first instance of any loss of control of their dogs by these trespassers/poachers & any potential threat to my stock (deer) I shoot the dogs. Simple!

Yes, I have had some pretty nasty confrontations, but I haven't had too many problems with doggers lately. It will happen again though.

Sharkey
 
Not the "Dog men" I had in mind when I started reading this

sounds like mates of a landowner

The DogMen I think of don't ask permission from anyone and certainly don't turn around and head home when confronted!

As a foolish youth I (accompanied by my brother and another chap) collected two lurchers we had seen running hares when they appeared lost on the road on the opposite side of the blocks of fields they and their owners were in.
This was broad daylight

We had the bright idea that we would deliver them to the Police about 5 miles away
Which we duly did.
on driving back we passed the van of "boys" looking for dogs and politely told them they would find their trespassing dogs at the Police Station.....
that is where the fun began!
to say they were displeased would be an understatement.

Then began a van chase as we tried to get away from them, including a short stretch of North bound driving on the south bound carriageway of the A1 where a pair of bolt cutters was thrown at our van and punched a hole through the metal side!
long story short it all ended up in a Mexican stand off at a property where the Police were called and the "boys" disappeared.

for the next 6 months I woke up every morning expecting to see burnt out cars and carnage. luckily it never happened!
not my finest decisions but youth and all that!

sound like you did the right thing
 
FB, I think in your situation I might have put across as theres been a bit of a misunderstanding between the smallholder and them, as you say they were told one thing (wrongly) and did leave without incident. Why the landowner didn't say no to the mooch about when she was told is a little odd.
If I see anyone on mine, I call the Police
 
FB, I think in your situation I might have put across as theres been a bit of a misunderstanding between the smallholder and them, as you say they were told one thing (wrongly) and did leave without incident. Why the landowner didn't say no to the mooch about when she was told is a little odd.
If I see anyone on mine, I call the Police


Before or after shooting the dogs?

Sharkey
 
Think you were lucky in that they seemed genuine enou & left.... I'd ask your landowner or do it yourself to mention to the wee landowner in caravan NOT to,give permission that isn't hers to give.
If it had been of the pikey variety you may have seen some violence .
Glad it went ok for you....
Out of curiosity what head cam do you,have / use ?

Paul
 
I bet the tattoo to tooth ratio between "pikiey's" & some of the "bogans" down here is no different. Best way to deal with bullies of any variety is to give them a bloody nose.

Sharkey
 
Sounds like a bit of a mix up, rather than out and out poaching by certain "dog men" chalk it down to experience and move on.
 
I bet the tattoo to tooth ratio between "pikiey's" & some of the "bogans" down here is no different. Best way to deal with bullies of any variety is to give them a bloody nose.

Sharkey

Wish we were able to apply the Antipodean common sense approach to the dog men,(and all other transgressors), if it were not frowned on by the busy's in the UK, there would be much less of the problems we suffer.
 
Forgive me, but aren't they committing a criminal offence when digging up dens and flushing the foxes to a coursing hound. I though had become an offence in the hunting with dogs act. If they flushing them to a gun then probably committing armed trespass.
 
I agree with those replies that it was a fault on the part of the smallholder and not the chaps with the dogs. I accepted thier explanation as to why they were there in the belief that they had permission and eventually they too accepted it as such and left without incident.
I have been asked by the owner of the land that the smallholder rents to go and try to deal with the fox situation. I have shot a couple of foxes for this landowner before. The reason that she did not contact me about this one was because she knew that I had been quite ill recently and wasn't sure if I was "back in action". I have agreed to go and try to sort this fox out for her and at the same time I will be talking to the smallholder about this incident.
With regards to if the situation had involved "pikeys" and maybe turned "nasty" that is something that I did not think about - Sometimes when you are faced with situations and you act instinctively without maybe putting enough thought into the situation.
In reply to the question asked by Sauer - It is a small and cheap MD80 (Under £10.00 including 8gb Micro SD Card) - It's not the best by any manner or means but it does the job I want it to.
 
Sounds to me like you are making something out of nothing.

They thought they had permission, you corrected them and they left. No big deal.

Using the term "confrontation", using a head cam, refering to them as getting bolshy and mouthy while you videod them etc just sounds like an attempt to stir up bad feeling against anyone with a lurcher.
 
this is something I had to deal with a quite a bit in my youth as a keeper, and had a few sore faces for my trouble.
Here in Scotland prior to the right to roam, we could not prosecute someone for trespass, but you could ask them to leave, if they refused to leave you could use as much force as necessary (no more) to remove them from the property sometimes a lot of force was needed if you get my drift.

You could also hold someone until the police arrived if you intended to bring a charge against them, at that time on private land a keeper had as much authority as a policeman, possibly more.

At that time the dog men were rough and they would put up a fight, but the salmon poachers using cymag or explosives were really dangerous as they were looking at a possible jail term if caught.

Changed days thankfully there are still poachers of course but they don't seem so dedicated these days, forty or fifty years ago poaching was for many of these guys a career choice and it was possible to make big money on salmon.

I can't really advise you what to do,not really advisable to mix it unless you are pretty sure you are going to come off best, and its not all together a wise move to approach them on your own, it was different for us it was part of the job we had really no choice,not sure I would have been tackling them if I didn't have to.

Probably best to just call the police, however many of them don't see poaching or wildlife crime if you prefer as that's what it is, as a priority.
 
On reading your post again it would seem that this was more a case someone giving permission that had no authority to do so rather than genuine poachers.

I think I would be going and having a chat with the smallholder.
 
Sounds to me like you are making something out of nothing.

They thought they had permission, you corrected them and they left. No big deal.

Using the term "confrontation", using a head cam, refering to them as getting bolshy and mouthy while you videod them etc just sounds like an attempt to stir up bad feeling against anyone with a lurcher.

I'm not too sure what other word that I could have used other than "confrontation", as that is was it was - I was faced with a situation and I confronted those involved about it. As for using the term "getting bolshy and mouthy" there really is no way to describe how one of them started to get for a short time. As for the use of a head cam I believe in trying to stay one step ahead - Had things turned sour in any way at all at least there would have been something to show that I acted reasonably.
One of the questions I asked in my original post was "What would you do if faced with this situation"! With that question in mind let me ask you a question - If a landowner who you have permission with calls you to say that you should expect to find men with dogs on your permission what would you do? Would you go out and "confront" them or would you just phone to police and hope that the police eventaully turned up or would you just sit back and do nothing? If you want to try faulting me for how I dealt with the situation why not tell us how you address/dealt with the situation?
As for trying to stir up bad feeling against anyone with lurchers or terriers, you could not be further from the truth! If I ever chose to show the full video you would see there is a part where I tell them (In a very calm and polite way) that I believe that it is a real shame that sometimes a small minority can give responsible lurcher and terrier owners a bad name! I do not have any problem whatsoever with people who own and/or work terriers or lurchers, as long as they care for their dogs properly and work them responsibly and legally - I used to own and work both lurchers and terriers myself (And loved every minute of seeing them work bopth foxes and rabbits) many years ago as the photo below shows (Well before the hunting with dogs act came into force)


Gemma.jpg
 
Bogtrotter, in reply to your post - Once again I honestly believe that this is what happened - They were under the impression that they had permission and that is why I don't believe I used the word "Poaching" or "Poachers" in my original post!
I will be going to speak to the smallholder in person when I go up to try to deal with the fox (At the request of the landowner concerned).
I have already spoken to the landowner about it and have asked her to have a word with her tennant!
 
Trouble with approaching anybody on your land who should not be there is by the time you realise that maybe you should have phoned the Police its too late. Personally I think you are lucky it turned out how it did. I know of some "dog men" who would have taken your head cam and rammed it along with your head where the sun don't shine. These guys just don't rate land ownership, permission, the law, being polite or anything else.
 
I agree with one thing in this ,
That sentiment may be taken wrongly against generic term of dog men .
I'm not against these guys , a pal & ex colleague has some of the best dogs you can get up here and helps out estates digging etc , all legally .
I myself would love a wee lurcher for mopping up say if I did purse netting etc ..which I did once & loved it.

The generic term I won't apologize for or care about being PC is pikeys or gypos or whatever you want to call them ... Now they are scum with no regard for anybody or their property .

Do think it was a misunderstanding more than anything, but I can see train of thought with head cam... It's called CYA ... Covering yer ar5e!
I would like one but one that would be discrete and not obvious as to antagonize

I see them having a use

Paul
 
Camera's are more in frequent use than some on here give credit for, many many vehicles are running cameras that if you get involved in any sort of incident you punch the button & it saves the last time period setting, using a head cam is most sensible, approaching potential problem types single handed is either not advisable or very brave.:cool:
 
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