For 12 years Bella protected the Hessions’ home.

She’d see off the wild dogs that over the years Julie and John Hession saw and heard on their property at Sargents Rd near Cawongla.

“She was fearless apart from thunder and lightning,” John said.

“If she heard the dogs at night, she’d howl back and make a circle around our property.”

Three weeks ago their kelpie cattle dog cross went missing.

They put up posters and asked on Facebook if anyone had seen Bella. A friend dropped leaflets to every letterbox surrounding the Hessions’ home.

For three weeks they expected Bella to bounce back into the house.

Then their neighbour called and said they had found the dog. They had recognised her from the leaflet.

Bella had puncture marks on her neck and grass around her had been squashed down to indicate an attack by a pack of dogs.

The couple buried their beloved pet in the paddock next to another of their dogs, Licky Lucky.

“I’m not ready to run out and get another dog,” Julie said. “I need time to grieve.”

The Hessions were comforted by the 400 comments on their Facebook post about Bella.

“It was soothing for the soul,” John said.

Sightings of koalas and cattle ripped apart by wild dogs is not uncommon around Cawongla and Homeleigh. The forests and valley give the dogs plenty of places to hide.

Ben Chamberlain from Local Land Services said the best approach to dealing with wild dog packs was a coordinated approach with landholders in the area.

“We get a number of landholders to do 1080 baiting,” he said.

“1080 is quite safe and is for dogs, foxes and cats. It doesn’t affect wildlife such as koalas.”

Despite people sighting dingos in the area, Ben said the majority of dogs were hybrids.

He said it wasn’t true that wild dogs were previously domestic dogs gone wild.

“DNA sampling shows there are wild dogs who have crossbred with a domestic dog.”

The population needed to be managed and when done in a coordinated way, it was more effective.

Landowners could hire a tracker to shoot wild dogs on their property and it is legal for owners to shoot wild dogs themselves, he said.

Wild dogs are also an issue when they encroach on towns across the North Coast. See more at northcoast.lls.nsw.gov.au

This article appeared in the Richmond River Independent, 2 December 2020.