If no livestock is harmed, the owner gets a trespassing fine on the dogs, in addition to the $500.00 per dog for an unleashed/unconfined animal. If a property owner catches a neighbor’s dog harassing or attacking livestock inside their fence, they can kill the dog without consequence-a tragedy for the dog, but maybe the negligent owner will leatn something. BTW, that hasn’t happened here in 3 years, and that incident involved 2 Treeing Walker hounds that brought down a full grown Barbados ram-and were shot by the property owner. They had been let out to run from the cabin of an idiot tourist staying on the river-the tourist was calling-the-sheriff-pissed, but was told it is frontier justice out here when it comes to property rights. I can’t imagine letting my dog out in an unfenced, strange area in the 1st place-recipe for disaster-and he still had to pay the owner of the ram for the animal and damages...
If livestock is injured or killed, the livestock owner can also sue for the value of the animal-now you are talking big bucks, complete with legal fees-the kind of money that can wipe out a person who is not wealthy. There are no wealthy people for miles out here...
Shooting the animal harassing or harming livestock or people is also codified in at least one other state of which I am aware. I believe this to be the case in many areas, but have not yet researched it.
If anyone would care to state their local laws - with statute numbers, please - it may be of interest to all who visit this thread.