I am not sure WHY you think they cannot be trustworthy around farm stock, what has breed got to do with being livestock safe?

Of course, there was more to it than just walking him around...he did get hurt by the sheep, he went in there with every intention of trying to kill them, he went at them (muzzled) and got a bit of a shock to say the least when they came right back at him. It frightened him, im not going to lie it wasnt pretty but it needed doing and in a quick way (my mum, unfortunately does not 'do' ongoing training with her dogs and prefers to bury her head in the sand). Its not something I would do with my own dogs and i think the reasons that particular dog is attacking them is needed to be understood first.
My mums dog enjoyed the thrill of the chase, he brought down and killed one sheep then moved on to the next even higher on adrenalin, so by subjecting him to the sheep that would stand up for themselves it was in effect ruining his game. So far so good and he has not shown any interest in any sheep he has come across since.

OK I have just read back what I wrote. Given that of course I agree that training is the first recourse, some breeds do have a different MO. And going back to the original question by the OP, this particular dog has shown its capabilities to be a finisher [cf: the link you gave earlier, Angela Stockdale].

This INDIVIDUAL has demonstrated it is not to be trusted with sheep.

There are PLENTY of Border Collies of whom the same could be said! They can be finshers too.

I am not talking about Field Trials, I have known gamekeepers who have used e-collars on HPRs while working them. Just because YOU find it strange doesn't mean that it doesn't happen

No I am sure it does happen to some poor dogs, leaving a collar on a dog of ANY description whilst working as gundog is an accident waiting to happen.

How fortunate I do not know of these gamekeepers who are insufficiently skilled, knowledgeable and experienced that they cannot train their dogs sufficiently without using an electric collar.

Shocking in every sense of the word.

Interesting link. It would be very useful for the average dog owner.

We don't have much info really at the moment, other that his cottage is surrounded by sheep on the hill. We are assuming (but don't know for certain) that the owner is letting his dogs out of their kennels for a leg stretch and this is when the particular dog has attacked. I would hope (and would imagine) that the owner does not know what his dog is doing while it is stretching its legs.

In kennels? They are working dogs then? They really ought to have a degree of obedience---maybe the owner is going to have to pay more attention to what the dog is doing or try to rehome it----is that an option?

Hopefully he now does know what it is doing!

rune

Yes, as I originally said it is a gamekeepers dog. Hubby has spoken to him this morning and apparently he has used an ecollar on it and it seems to have worked We will see.

I was going to offer to help find it a new home if nothing else worked.

Thanks everyone for your replies and advice.