WISCASSET – Police believe dogs are responsible for an attack that killed more than a dozen sheep over the weekend.

Investigators say the dogs either jumped or knocked down an electric fence to get at the sheep. Farmer Lee Straw discovered the carnage after getting a call about his sheep being loose at 5:30 a.m. Sunday.

Bob Horne, who owns the land where the sheep were set out to pasture, said he was shocked when he saw the dead sheep.

“It’s thousands of dollars’ worth of a farmer’s livelihood,” he said.

Police, along with Straw and Horne, believe dogs, not coyotes, were responsible because only a few of the 15 dead sheep were eaten.

“It has to be dogs, and more than one, because one wouldn’t do that much damage,” said Officer Kathy S. Williams of the Wiscasset Police Department.

Williams said the dogs probably toppled the fence, which delivers an electric shock on contact, to enter the pasture. She said the sheep were valued at around $2,000.

Because about two-thirds of those killed were intended for birthing lambs, they would have been worth $10,000 over the course of several years, Straw said.

The attacks were the worst for Straw in three years. He said he lost 17 sheep in 2004 to a group of dogs that police never found.

The attack is very similar to an attack on a flock of sheep last summer in Charlotte in which dogs that belonged to Alan and Valerie Fenderson attacked and killed more than a dozen ewes, rams and lambs belonging to Steve and Paula Farrar, owners of Done Roving Farm and Carding Mill on Charlotte Road.

Late last year the Charlotte couple admitted in 4th District Court – through their attorney – that they were guilty of keeping a dangerous dog – two huskies, according to an article published in the Bangor Daily News on Dec. 20, 2006.

The dogs were euthanized earlier in December.

The BDN reported that on Aug. 5, the dogs slipped into the Farrar pasture and went on a killing spree. The dogs, which had been reported roaming the area for weeks, were up to date on their rabies shots but were not licensed.

The complaint on file with the court said that the dogs not only “attacked, injured and killed domestic sheep,” but also “menaced Lisa Edgerly and her two young children, forcing them to retreat into the safety of their home.” In the end, 15 sheep out of a flock of 58 were dead; one was missing.

That same day, one of the male huskies bit the town’s animal control officer, Larry Colarusso, on both hands and on his left arm. He had to seek medical treatment for his injuries.