So my mate and I had a bit of an experience yesterday...
He has a property north of Melbourne where he keeps cows and sheep, and we normally shoot rabbits and foxes.
We'd camped out after a day of shooting and had set up tent in the nook of a small hill to shelter us from the wind. In the morning we heard some muted growls from the other side of the hill and went to check it out and found 3 feral dogs in a stand off with one of this cows about 20 meters away.
He's never seen dogs on his property before so we weren't expecting them at all. He had his rifle slung over his back just so he didn't leave it unattended but had no ammo, luckily I had mine and a magazine handy because when the dogs saw us they went off the cow and turned their attention towards us.
We had an unspoken moment of panic between us as we weren't sure if a shot this close might shock them into having a go at us. Taking the remaining 2 out of 3 sprinting dogs down as they close the 20 metres between us with a bolt action isn't something I'd like to test my luck over...
After a minute it didn't look like they were backing down so I shot the first of the three and luckily the other two legged it.
Scary couple of minutes though... He's very happy that they came across a cow first that had some size to intimidate with too, and not some of sheep.
Just something for anyone with a property in north VIC to keep in mind.