Quote:
Originally Posted by Morthoron
Your idea of "appropriate fashion" is revisionist to be sure. Farmers/landowners have been chasing trespassers off their lands with dogs for millenia.
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This is Middle Earth, not the UK or any other civilised nation with laws to protect farmers and the public alike.
Maggot was in a foul and shaken mood after the encounter with the Nazgul (not too many of these have been seen in England), and he upped his security stance to the highest level when he said to Merry he nearly set his dogs on the trespassing Frodo and company. The Nazgul was seen as the last straw, as though Maggot had encountered many other trespassers before (Frodo was one of them, but some years go). It is not known whether the dogs would have been used to merely chase trespassers off from then on, if indeed that was all Maggot trained them for. If the trespasser presented any retaliation, then the guard dogs would of course attack without hesitation.
Ultimately, I think Maggot would not have used his dogs to kill anyone or anything, not unless he could clearly see it was life vs death situation. The encounter with the Nazgul may have just made him extra paranoid and anxious, and angry almost to breaking point. He suspected the Nazgul would return, and was not far away.