An avid bird enthusiast, Mr Caldow walked out to his backyard at 5am recently to tend to his aviaries only to be faced with two large rottweilers.

The stray dogs had burst through the fencing of the aviaries, killing the birds as they went.

When Mr Caldow arrived, the dogs were in the last of the aviaries.

“I walked out and just saw the two dogs with all these weeros dead on the ground,” Mr Caldow said.

“What I saw was gut wrenching.

“I was in shock.”

Mr Caldow’s first reaction was to find something to patch up the holes to prevent the dogs from leaving.

The larger of the two dogs tried to attack Mr Caldow’s wife as she came to assist.

He called Ranger Services but by the time the rangers arrived the dogs had left the property.

Following this the rangers commenced an investigation of several properties in the area and spoke to the property owners but to no avail.

Further checks of the area for the dogs in question yielded no results.

Mandurah chief executive Mark Newman said the response time of the rangers was quick, given that the rangers began work at 7am.

“Rangers are only called out to emergencies after hours if there is a major attack by a dog on a person or one where the police are called and consider the situation serious enough to contact a ranger to attend,” Mr Newman said.

“The City has never contemplated a full 24-hour ranger service seven days a week where rangers are on call overnight and called direct by the public as that would be too costly and would not be warranted.”

Only nine birds survived the attack.

“These birds were very tame and these dogs just seemed to rip them apart,” Mr Caldow said.

“I was horrified and then angry these dogs had busted through a door and proceeded to kill every bird for the hell of it.

“They were silent killers that never made a sound.”

The offending dogs have still not been located.

Mr Caldow said he felt lucky he didn’t lose all of his birds, but 29 was a big blow.

“It’s taken me two to three years to collect all those birds,” he said.

“I can’t afford to replace them all now.

“It makes me wonder whether I want to keep doing it.”