Roaming dogs are being blamed for the slaughter of sheep on the same Bellevue property that was hit last year.

Meg Graeme, whose parents own the flock on Princess Road, hopes people will be able to help before more sheep are killed.

'This time we only lost four sheep, as opposed to the whole flock of 14 last time,” she says, adding that the two lambs who survived the previous attack had to be put down.

The attack happened at about 7am on Saturday, although because the sheep go silent in such situations, no one heard anything.

'Fortunately a neighbour looked out the window, saw a dog run past chasing a sheep, and alerted us.”

She says there are eight left in this flock now, which are kept on the lifestyle block just to keep the grass down.

Meg's family have always had sheep on the three-acre property, for more than 40 years now.

She thinks it's important for people in the community to know, especially those with sheep of their own.

'We wouldn't have put our sheep up in the top paddock if we'd known there were dogs roaming about.”

Meg believes they could have come from the Bellevue area, or they could have come across the wetlands from Bethlehem.

She describes them as a medium sized black dog with a pointed nose and the other a larger greyish dog with a much more solid build, like a pig dog.

The council has supplied dog traps, but there's not much more they can do unless the dogs turn up again, or somebody recognises the dogs from their description.

'If anyone knows anything they should ring the council.”