Hillwalkers best friend or foe? Dave Hewitt's recent column on dogs on the hills has prompted a flurry of responses from both sides of the kennel fence.
There's nothing quite like writing about dogs to prompt a kennel-load of feedback, so it's not surprising that the piece two weeks ago - on the legality or otherwise of ad hoc No Dogs signs - has led to a few dogged responses.
Mairi Mackenzie tells of owning her second dog, after the first ("a border collie who would walk through a field of sheep and never bat an eyelid") died last year. The new one is a collie/labrador cross, "more lab than collie. He too is a rescue dog, and until his first Munro last year had obviously never seen a sheep before. I have had to take him out to a friend's farm and walk him through the sheep every weekend over the winter until he now thinks that looking at a white fluffy thing is a thought crime. Having said that, I will not let him off lead on the hills if there is any livestock about, because the chase instinct is too strong."
His being on a lead on the lower slopes didn't prevent a recent problem, however; "My friend and I walked the two Munros past Balquhidder a few weeks ago and had total abuse from the landowner because the people in front of us had let their dog off the lead after being asked not to. We stressed we were responsible dog owners, but no, the very fact we were there, never mind the dogs, would cause his ewes to panic and abort the lambs! Total stuff - the sheep paid us no attention and the dogs ignored the sheep, but on the way back off the hill we could see this mini-Hitler observing us through his binoculars.
"The point I am trying to make is that if you are responsible, generally speaking you are welcomed. I have even had the offer of a tenner if my dog could round up some strays off the hill as the shepherd had failed! I think it is the sole responsibility of the owner to ensure the dog causes no disruption to livestock, and I think most landowners/farmers are reasonable if you approach them the correct way and let them know you are well-behaved and the dog is trained. Surely also at lambing time it is only sensible to stick to sheep-free areas. The mountains won't go away, so surely we people can wait a couple of weeks in order to keep tempers on both sides of the debate cooled."
My own thoughts on this (and I should stress that I'm no more a dog-owner than I am a landowner or farmer, so can't offer an "insider's" view) are that Mairi's incident highlights two of the basic difficulties with dogs on the hill. One is that responsible dog owners tend to be hit with hassle due to the behaviour of their less responsible colleagues. And then there are those farmers who are not just implacably anti-dog access but also anti-human access as well and who therefore use the dog issue as an excuse to pursue their prejudices.
It ought to be noted that the farmer at Inverlochlarig - where Mairi and her dog were made less than welcome - has long had a reputation for stroppiness, and certainly comes into the anti-dog category and is possibly anti-walker too. Although I've never been in receipt of the farmer's ire myself, several friends have and I once crossed swords with a woman whom I presume was the farmer's wife. This incident, some years ago now, left the impression that she regarded the upper end of the Loch Voil glen - including the public road - as her own personal property. The overall feeling is that the people who live at the end of that particular road resent having a bunch of big, popular, alluring hills just out the back - which is a sad way to be if true.
Anyway, back to the generalities. It's interesting to hear a dog owner argue for a self-imposed ban on sheepy hills during the lambing, and having watched a Sunday-stroll couple let their dog chase lambs above Dollar Glen last weekend I'm inclined to agree. On first seeing this I wondered why a line of lambs was running away, unprompted; it took a second glance to see that the last-in-line lamb was actually a wee Scottie dug. The owner tried to call it back with some half-hearted and largely-ignored whistling - and then didn't put the dog on its lead when it did finally return.
One problem with this however is that of defining "the lambing". Most non-farmers would tend to see the relevant period as stretching from just before the lambs are born until they stop being extremely cute spring-heeled creatures and start looking more like little sheep. This covers three weeks or so, a period that comes at different times of the spring depending on latitude and altitude. But as was shown during the foot and mouth last year, some farmers choose to interpret the lambing as a period of several months - from when the ewes are mid-term in their gestation to when the lambs, depending on the lottery of their sex, have either become robust or have been carted off to the abattoir. In some quarters last year a period of between four to six months was being touted as the lambing, and this is clearly impractical for even the most careful dog-owner. As with the signage problem that started this particular discussion, if the level of restriction is pitched too high (or even an absolute ban in terms of the signs) then it becomes counterproductive and the farmer is faced with the whole thing backfiring and everyone ignoring his "requests".
On a similar theme, Bob Ross writes to say that in his experience dog owners are generally more responsible than mountain bikers, who "don't give a damn about anyone or anything. There must of course be a responsible element out there it's just that I don't come across them very often." Bob owns two Siberian huskies that sound quite a handful - well, two handfuls. "They drag me around the hills and are never off the lead as that would be bye-bye to both. They are attached to me at all times, usually on an old climbing belt with ten metres of thin climbing tape. Any woolly jumpers around however and that is reduced to about half a metre! These things go after anything from a mouse to a red deer if they get the chance. I consider therefore that they are under control at all times and where I go so do they. Does this make me irresponsible just like the bikers? I like to think not but I'm sure that there are those out there who think otherwise." Well, for me Bob's huskies don't sound like a problem - if permanent climbing-tape leads don't qualify as "under control", then nothing does. Having said that, it would be interesting to see the exchange of pleasantries should he try to take them on to Beinn Chabhair or the Inverlochlarig hills.
Finally for now, an incident where the dog owner was clearly not in control and where farmers, pleasant or otherwise, didn't come into play at all. John Harkness mailed with "another angle on this topic - that of dogs causing a nuisance to other walkers". John, his wife and three children (aged 10, seven and two) recently went to Ben Vrackie. "Just as we were starting our lunch at the side of the small loch halfway up the hill, two labradors came bounding over the rise above us and immediately attacked Beth's (the seven-year-old) lunch which was in her lap. Before I could react, they'd finished it - two gulps and it was gone or scattered. My daughter was almost hysterical, more from the shock of two dogs squabbling in her lap than the loss of her lunch. My other daughter started crying in sympathy and Matthew (aged two) was bawling at all the noise and fuss. We chased the dogs off but looked in vain for an owner."
That wasn't the end of it, though. "It was almost two minutes later that a woman walker appeared coming down the path. I didn't trust myself to approach her, I was so angry but she wouldn't even talk to us and marched off with her dogs as though we'd attacked them. The dogs still hadn't been restrained in any way or even admonished for their behaviour. I am not a dog owner but often go walking with a friend and his dog. He always keeps it close or on a leash and I enjoy those walks but get quite angry when I see dogs being allowed to run loose, and even more now."
There is, I fear, a lot of this about - both the unwanted attention of dogs and an unwillingness on the part of the owners to apologise for or even acknowledge the problem. My own most annoying incident of this kind came on Schiehallion a few years ago. I was on top eating tinned fish and samosas when a labrador pounced and scoffed half the food while slavering over the rest. As with the Vrackie incident, the owner was unwilling or unable to see anything at all inappropriate in this, attempting to laugh it off as though I should be amused or even honoured by having my rations snatched by his fire-rug on legs.
There was an odd coda to this, as the dog appeared to meet a mysterious end on descent. My party encountered its party searching forlornly at half-height but it must have become stuck down a hole or something and the owners eventually gave up - for that day at least - and returned to the car park dogless. We joined the search for a few minutes but it was hard to feel 100% sympathetic given what had happened earlier.
At least John Harkness didn't get into any confrontation with the dog's owner on Ben Vrackie. This is always a danger, especially in case of fierce dogs and yappy humans. I was once sworn at and threatened for trying to stop a dog eating my lunch in Glasgow Green, while a friend found themselves in an instructive and cautionary incident a couple of years ago. The friend was in a park, with his sister and her wee girl, when a big dog ran up and leapt at the girl, terrifying and scratching her. It might have been only playing but my friend (a gentle soul, normally) wasn't taking the risk and so gave the dog a hefty kick. The owner - non-interventionist until now - suddenly became interested and a row ensued, the gist of which seemed to be that man kicks dog was worse than dog scratches girl. Such incidents are, I fear, akin to the problem of trying to break up a domestic fight in the street - as often as not the two antagonists are likely to forget their differences and form an instant alliance against the would-be white knight.
On a less fraught note, it's worth recalling that throughout the 1990s it wasn't a dog that was likely to nab your lunch on Ben Vrackie but two massive ex-farmyard billy goats that lived on or around the summit. I'm not alone in having become very fond of these, such that Vrackie became a hill worth climbing just for the summit entertainment. The usual routine was that they would be hiding when you arrived, would then pounce from behind once you'd unpacked your lunch, and would then have to be fended off with walking poles, ice axes, bazookas and the like. After this they tended to engage in a fearsome-looking horn-clashing joust, before finally lying down beside the trig point and looking all sweet and innocent (but only until the next summiteers/suckers arrived, at which point the whole routine would start again).
They had originally been brought in to keep down the thistles on a farm below the hill but quickly escaped and found a new life for themselves up top. A couple of winters ago they started to struggle healthwise and were eventually put down after being found at the bottom of the hill, very thin and eating rhoddies.
Sadly missed - unlike the sandwich-snatching labs.
Dave Hewitt
23/5/2002
You can get in touch with Dave at Dave.Hewitt@dial.pipex.com
