As a hill farmer on the Southern Uplands of East Ayrshire, I have suffered many dog attacks on my livestock, but there’s one that stands out for how distressing it was. A few years back, two dogs – a spaniel and a terrier with no owner in sight – got into one of my fields and began chasing my sheep. My farm is a 5,000-acre estate, on which 3,500 breeding ewes roam. In this instance, I watched helplessly as the dogs ran riot.