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Angel is a Livestock Guardian Dog (LGD)
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Mother
:
Great Pyrenees
Father
:
Anatolian Shepherd
x
Akbash
This breed is thousands of years in
the making. You do not train a livestock guardian
born with livestock; that is their family whom they
guard with their life. They have thousands of years
of instincts & inherited intelligence.
Please leave cattle dogs, ranch dogs,
and other herding & protecting canines where
they belong
on the farm.
A
local resident of the housing development
pleaded with me
"Have you seen my dog!
My border collie is lost? He got out of the
back yard!"
I stared at her
"Where
are your livestock?"
The woman glared
at me. That housing development has yards
the size of a living room. How the hell
would a super intelligent, high energy
working dog such as the boder collie live in
confinement without going stir crazy?
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A livestock
guardian dog (LGD) should not be trained to regular
dog obedience
because then it will look to a human
for "what to do"which is a mistake because
they
know what to do!
Nevertheless stupid people say
"Oh what a beautiful dog! She's so cute!"
and make a pet of an LGD. I've seen
Craiglist ads trying to rehome adult LGDs as pets. One was
right here in the ranch town where I live. It said
"I made this LGD a pet which was pretty stupid
because it killed my cat and bit my grandchild.
These dogs have to protect livestock and should not
be pets."
Right.
I would add that the dog
was ruined because it
wasn't raised with livestock to
bond with
as its family. Good luck trying to
rehabilitate that dog. I've also seen Great Pyrenees
x Anatolian Shepherds on leashes at Point Isabel
an off leash dog area. But you can't let them off
leash because they will attack and kill small dogs
they instinctively view as prey animals. Recently at
Point Isabel my dog Collie approached one on a
harness and was soon snarling & barkingwhich upset
the owner who didn't understand the communication.
Collie was giving a "dog correction" to an animal
that had negative social skills. She's done that
before with similar problem dogs.
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My girl, Collie, is a therapy dog to people
She can
also sniff out infection in the sheep, track scent
of other animals, alert
snarl-bark
about a dog with the wrong vibes.
My point is
"Please
don't adopt working dogs to be pets!"
Working dogs,
such as Police or military working dogs, herding
dogs, hunting dogs, and livestock guardian dogs (LGD), have
generations of inherited
intelligence guiding their role in life.
Just because
a puppy "looks cute", or a Great Pyrenees looks like a white
Golden Retireiver
doesn't mean it has the same
temperment as a household pet
. They don't and
they're not pets.
If you want a pet dog then adopt a pet breed.
Leave working dogs to those who utilize their
abilities. Forcing one to live in the confinement of
an apartment or urban house is like raising a child
confined to a room.
And never allowing it out of
the house to attend school.
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Dolly is a Katahdin sheep
These do not have wool, they have hair that sheds so
they do not beed to be sheared. Mine are probably a
cross with a wool sheep giving a coat that pretty
much sheds off.
Katahdin sheep were selected
to be easy birthers. Mine have never had any
complications. They just plop out lambs.
One of
the
lambs at right has a grey color headsee the one she's
licking?
I've never seen a grey head sheep
because
mine are always black head from the Dorper ram
father.
The next day that lamb was missing.
Located out in the pasture it had died from no
visible cause. But Dolly raised her other lamb up
with no problems.
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Good momma!
Good job Dolly!
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Tyler watched from the deck located in the sheep
enclosure.
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The collie sisters kept watch,
hoping to see more birthing..
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More to come!
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