We had a pack of half wild dogs roaming around several small farms and back country when I was in high school. The leader was a big German shepherd and I’m sure some dogs that had owners would roam with the pack at times. They killed a neighbor’s four months old calf and killed chickens, turkeys etc. I had two encounters with them.
The first time I was hunting pheasants and cutting across some sage hills. The pack circled me, silently menacing at ten to 15 yards but wary. I didn’t shoot the leader and should have. He was new and hadn’t killed the calf yet, and I thought maybe a neighbor owned him.
My second encounter with him was on a day of patchy snow when my Mom yelled that the wild dog was after our chickens and to bring a gun. I grabbed my single shot .22, ( should have grabbed a shotgun), ran out and in the dim dusk light could not see the iron sights except on snow. As the
German shepherd loped past me at ten yards, I sighted on a patch of snow ahead of his chest, waited and fired when I thought his ribs were just coming on the sights. I fired too soon. A neighbor killed him a week later and we found a fresh deep bullet blaze across the front of his chest.
Town people would dump off unwanted dogs out in farm country.
