Ranch Fights Pack of Killer Dogs

High up in the Antelope Valley, a mile from the Kern County line, shotgun-wielding ranchers and county officers armed with infrared sensors are out on a mission: stop the grisly massacres at the Nebeker ranch.

The marauders strike quickly--a sudden shriek is sometimes the only warning an attack is in progress. The aftermath is a horrifying sight, rancher Eugene Nebeker says, reminding him of pictures of village massacres in the Vietnam War.

The sheep and goat pens are covered with blood, injured animals twitching in the dirt as the killers flee the scene.

They flee on four legs.

For a week, a rogue dog pack has been on the Antelope Valley’s most-wanted list.

The dogs have reportedly terrorized neighboring ranches as well, but seem to have developed a fondness for the 680-acre Nebeker ranch, which holds about 2,000 sheep and goats. About three dozen animals have been killed by the raiding dogs, and dozens more have been injured, costing the ranch an estimated $30,000, Nebeker said.

Emotions are running high as ranch hands see the hounds tear apart their livelihood. County animal control officers have been unable to catch the killers, despite using high-tech surveillance equipment. The dogs are described as two animals that appear to be part German shepherd, one of which is “real big,” accompanied by a smaller black terrier.

Nebeker isn’t intimidated. “I think we’re all so mad that, even the big one, if we can get our hands on it, we would do it in,” he said.

After all, the livestock on the Nebeker ranch are innocent victims that were never destined for the slaughterhouse. The sheep and goats provide blood and serum products, and they are not killed in the process, Nebeker said.

“They live very happy and very privileged lives,” Nebeker said. “They don’t have to go out and forage for their food, we bring it in. They get nice, clean water, they have a lot of pen space. . . . The only problem we’ve had with them is that some are getting fat.”

The dogs have hit the ranch on at least three occasions, all at night.

The attacks began Saturday and two more occurred Tuesday. In the second attack, a rancher shot one of the dogs in the leg, but the wound didn’t seem to hamper the hound, which loped away as swiftly as its companions, fading into the darkness of the desert night.

All-night stakeouts by ranchers have been supplemented the past three nights by Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control officers equipped with infrared devices that can detect the heat from the dog’s bodies at a distance. The dogs stayed away Wednesday night, possibly scared off by all the new scents.

“I think the dogs are wary,” said Gail Miley, manager of the animal control department’s Lancaster shelter. An animal control officer spotted them about 7 a.m. Thursday about half a mile from the ranch, but the dogs ducked out of sight into a riverbed.

Chasing down the killers presents a serious challenge to the animal control officers, who spent much of Thursday bleary-eyed after their two nightlong stakeouts.

“We’re whipped,” Miley said, battling to keep her eyelids open. “I’ll tell you, animal control, no day is the same. I have to say this is one of the most tiring days.”

The situation has gotten so grim that Miley has had to borrow officers from the office in Downey to supplement her sleep-deprived force.

Miley believes the dogs are familiar with the crazy quilt of gullies and riverbeds that chop up the sagebrush-filled terrain of the north desert. They attack during the night, she said, when “the only light is from the stars.”

More than a dozen ranchers and officers sit in their pickup trucks around the pens those nights, huddled in parkas and under blankets to fight the desert cold, sipping from insulated containers of coffee and munching M&Ms; to keep them going through the night. In the daytime, they cruise the desert, looking for the killers. The animal control officers carry tranquilizer guns; some ranchers carry shotguns or other firearms, arguing they have to protect their livestock.

Miley said that although the dogs seem to relish terrorizing livestock, they may not attack humans. Sheep killing “is more for the sport than for anything else. It starts out as more of a chase kind of thing, and then the pack instinct sets in,” she said.

The severity and frequency of these attacks make this pack unusual, said Miley, adding that she did not know if the dogs were wild or belong to an owner who doesn’t bother keeping them home.

But dogs attacking livestock is nothing new in remote desert areas. Nebeker said the frequency of dog attacks on his ranch, which he’s had for 23 years, has soared recently. He blames that on lax enforcement of leash laws, saying that the animal control station is woefully understaffed.

“There’s a real health and safety problem up in the high desert” due to dogs running around unleashed. “It’s a threat to livestock, pets and children,” Nebeker said.

Nebeker and Miley both said dog owners need to take more responsibility for leashing dogs that might harm other animals or children.

On Nov. 20, dogs got through the wire around Nebeker’s goat pen and killed eight goats, injuring 12 others, Nebeker said. A rancher shot and killed one dog and wounded two others.

The dogs were found to belong to an Antelope Valley man who has been charged with maintaining a public nuisance and other misdemeanors, Miley said.

As for the hounds at large, “we’ll keep going until we get ‘em,” Nebeker vowed.