Andrew Johnson

This bill was obviously submitted by someone who has no idea of how livestock guardian dogs (LGDs) operate. LGDs are mostly defensive dogs. Their job is to keep predators away. This is why they bark. They smell, hear, and sometimes see things that people cannot and they deem it a threat to the livestock they are protecting. They bark to let the livestock know that a predator is near and they bark to let the predator know that they smell, hear, or see them. I cannot tell you how many times I hear a pack of coyotes yipping together but when my dogs start barking, the coyotes go quiet. There are a couple of the real corkers in this bill: 1. "It occurs repeatedly between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. without documented predator activity" - I don't know where you live, but where I live there are predators galore: coyotes, foxes, bobcats, fisher cats, etc. - there is no "documented predator activity" because there is always predator activity and it would be a full time job to "document" it all. 2. "It continues for more than 10 consecutive minutes without the presence of a predator or livestock distress" - ummm - who determines whether there is a predator present? As I mentioned earlier LGDs (and dogs in general), have far more sensitive smell and hearing than people do. So do I pull the dogs off duty because some poorly thought out law with a 10 minute timer has expired or do I trust them that they know when the predator is no longer hanging around? I trust them to know their business better than the folks in Concord. In addition, I already register my dog with the town. There are already laws about nuisance barking. Why is this an issue? Why was this bill brought up? Why single out LGDs. On my road, I hear dogs barking (often for longer than 10 minutes) from half a dozen different properties who are not LGDs. So the solution is to create more poorly thought out laws? Please do not support this bill. Please do not waste your constituents time on bills like these. Thank you.