North Yorkshire farmers plea for dogs to be kept on leads
It's after a massive rise in dog attacks in the last year
There is an urgent plea for people across North Yorkshire to keep their dogs on leads in the countryside as attacks on farm animals continue to rise.
Figures show last year, the cost to farmers was £1.8 million, that is up 50 percent pre pandemic.
Rebecca Wilson is a farmer in the county and she said: "To get this added stress is absolutely massive and it does cause a lot of anguish for farmers because obviously you might have sleepless nights thinking 'what am I going to go out and see in the morning?' You can't be with every sheep at every minute of every day.
"There might not look to be livestock in the field you're in but it doesn't mean there aren't some around the corner so keep your dog on a lead. If you're worried that your dog hasn't had the exercise it needs, there's plenty of places where you can go and have your dog off the lead in a fenced area.
"It's actually amazing to see the stress and the toll it's taking on these ewes which are very used to being around a sheepdog, they're now petrified of dogs so for your sheep to be petrified of that dog which is trained and around them every day actually means that the stress goes on a lot more beyond the incidents."