For the second time this winter a Kaka Point man has returned home to find the sheep that graze his property bloodied and maimed after an apparent dog attack.
Greg Williams suspects neighbourhood dogs are to blame for the mauling outside his home on Sunday, but without any proof, he says there is nothing he, nor the Clutha District Council's animal control staff can do.
Mr Williams said the second attack had been worse than the first, which occurred ''a couple of months ago'', and now that the animals had a taste for it, he said he believed the severity of the attacks would escalate.
At his property yesterday morning, he described coming home to the wounded animals about 6.30pm on Sunday.
''I came home last night. These two were upside down ... I put them on their feet.''
A ewe in lamb had had its skin pulled off from its back leg to its underbelly.
A ram had fared better in the attack, but a leg was broken.
Mr Williams keeps seven sheep on his property to control broom.
Council planning and regulatory manager David Campbell said the complaint was rare for the area, but animal control officers would visit dog owners at the seaside community ''just to forewarn them that this is happening''.
Animal control would be ''stepped up'' if the complaints were ongoing.
''It's a worry for the sheep and stock owners - what we can do is if he [Mr Williams] thinks he knows where it is from, the animal control officer can visit that property and make the owner aware, because as the owner of the sheep he can legally shoot the dog if it's worrying his stock at the time,'' Mr Campbell said.
''It's a frustrating one, because he can't really be there the whole time.''
In the year ending June 30, 2015, the council had received 205 complaints relating to dogs.
Mr Campbell estimated only about 10% of those were for aggressive dogs and that fewer than 10 dog attacks had been reported.
He could not provide the number of dogs the council had destroyed the previous year.
''Often it's people's dogs getting a neighbour's chicken or rabbit or something like that and they'll offer to deal with it themselves in terms of putting the dog down - because they know it's a problem.
''But it's sort of a handful a year of those sort of cases - pretty isolated.''
There are 7300 dogs in the district.
