A DOG warden has been employed on Dartmoor in an attempt to reduce the amount of sheep worrying incidents which farmers claim have increased over the past three years.

The part-time ranger has been appointed by the Dartmoor Livestock Protection Society with the Dartmoor Commoners Association and Dartmoor National Park helping out with finance and administration.

Chairman of DLPS Marion Saunders said someone had been chosen from the eight applicants who applied for the job and had started work this week.

'We thought we had to do something to try and bring this thing under control,' she said.

'The ranger will be getting information and talking to the public, pointing out how much damage a dog that runs free can do. There are people who go up on the moor, sit in their car and read the paper while their dog runs free — and 100 metres up the road it starts biting a lamb until it's dead.

'By talking to dog owners and putting the farmer's point of view across we want to help them see that their dogs need to be under control.'

Miss Saunders said the female dog warden would be the 'eyes and ears' of the society and would also be relying on members of the public to tell her things.

'It may be that someone has been spotted going to an area and letting their dog run free,' she said.

'If people see things like this we want them to tell the dog warden and she can make a point of going to that area. There are a lot of people who walk their dog responsibly but there is also a lot of ignorance out there and people need to be told.'

Roborough Common and Whitchurch Common have been highlighted as problem areas.

Farmer Arnold Cole, who has around 80 ewes on Roborough Down, said he had almost 20 sheep killed last summer through dog attacks.

'A lot of the problem is local dogs who have been turned out to exercise on their own,' he said. 'Owners let them out for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening and think they are in the garden, but they are wandering on the common.'

He said overgrown bracken did not help the situation because people could not always see what their dogs were up to.

'The dog warden was employed because the situation had got worse and worse over the past three years,' he said.

'Farmers' margins have been driven down and we can ill afford to lose sheep through dog attacks. We have to pay £15 to get rid of them.'

Dog owner Mary Bombay said her sheep dog was 'electronically trained' — a mixture of professional training and the use of an electronic collar which gives the dog a mini electric shock if any attempt is made to chase sheep.

'It is up to dog owners to control their dogs like parents need to control their children but dogs do need exercise and just walking them on a lead is not enough,' she said.

She added that dogs had been given a bad name when it was not always them who were at fault: 'Roborough Down is criss-crossed with roads and a sheep can easily be clipped by a car and succumb to its injuries,' she said.