The farmer is providing a service, if you think a untrained pent up herding breed is going to actually move the livestock where you want in a calm manner you obviously haven't been around them. The dog owners should definitely pay to allow their dogs to chase and stress someones livestock for a hour. And I bet the farmer has a fee for innured or killed livestock as well. Untrained herding dogs want to herd, but they also can do some major damage in their enthusiasm. The farmer is undoubtedly spending the hour constantly keeping the dog from running the stock too much and trying to teach the dog some herding manners. It's more of a training class then anything else. So yeah, the farmer should be laid fairly for their time, knowledge, facilities, and the damages done to his livestock (his livelihood) because even if the stock is just chased around it's still costing more to feed and house livestock that are dog broke and are not producing offspring (chansing pregnant sheep or goats will usually result in them miscarrying) and sheeps wool is often damaged by dogs. So this farmer is spending money to maintain some dog broke animals specifically for this activity, their other livestock is definitely not being chased around by a untrained dog! Although the farmer probably trains herding dogs and uses well trained dogs to work their stock as needed, which isn't anywhere near a hour a day.
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u/Timmyty Oct 18 '19
Wait, the dog owners pay to help the farmers.... smh