Brian77
Gold Member
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2014
- Messages
- 1,718
I thought I would share these pictures of my daughter with our new Livestock Guardian Dog. (LGD) We have two little dogs that live in the house with us, and we have two large Guardian Dogs that live with the sheep.
We live on a working cattle and sheep ranch, and have a lot of sheep. Lambing season has just started, and will continue probably into mid May. There is a thriving coyote population around here, and they're harder to hunt in areas that have a lot of forested acreage. We have only been fortunate enough to kill a few coyotes through the years. A large male I was able to get in August, that had killed 7 adult sheep in the previous 10 days. (The dogs are still both pups)
The livestock Guardian breeds are not very common, and a lot of people are not familiar with the breeds and their role in protecting livestock. We started out with Great Pyrenees and they did not work out very well for us. In part because of their breeding, and in part because of where we got them. I know some people do have great working dogs that are Great Pyrenees breed. The next breed that we had for 10 years were Anatolian Shepherds. They are from Turkey. They were very effective for us, and kept the coyotes away from the sheep. One of the downsides to an Anatolian Shepherd is their working style. They like a large perimeter, commonly a 3 to 500 acre area that they will patrol. And in most cases that involves patrolling on neighbors land, and here we had one or two neighbors that were not keen on that idea.
After those two dogs retired, we started looking for a close guarding breed the one that through years of research continued to rise to the top again and again is the Spanish Mastiff breed. Quality registered dogs are very rare in this country, and very difficult to get. We were fortunate enough to be able to purchase one and import her from Moscow, Russia after waiting for over 2 years. The male in the one picture is a percentage Spanish mastiff, crossbred with an Anatolian Shepherd. His name is Timber. They are very affectionate toward us, and will bark but not be aggressive toward other humans. That is in part because they were both purchased at 4:00 and six months of age. Litters born here out in the field with the sheep, as is common with working LGD dogs, will display more aggressive tendencies toward both strangers, neighborhood dogs, and all predator type animals.
Timber is actually taller then Bella, but lighter in build. She will weigh about 150 lbs mature. She is 5 months old, and he is 7 months old.
She is a big clumsy oaf, and loves running into us, and knocking us over...
We live on a working cattle and sheep ranch, and have a lot of sheep. Lambing season has just started, and will continue probably into mid May. There is a thriving coyote population around here, and they're harder to hunt in areas that have a lot of forested acreage. We have only been fortunate enough to kill a few coyotes through the years. A large male I was able to get in August, that had killed 7 adult sheep in the previous 10 days. (The dogs are still both pups)
The livestock Guardian breeds are not very common, and a lot of people are not familiar with the breeds and their role in protecting livestock. We started out with Great Pyrenees and they did not work out very well for us. In part because of their breeding, and in part because of where we got them. I know some people do have great working dogs that are Great Pyrenees breed. The next breed that we had for 10 years were Anatolian Shepherds. They are from Turkey. They were very effective for us, and kept the coyotes away from the sheep. One of the downsides to an Anatolian Shepherd is their working style. They like a large perimeter, commonly a 3 to 500 acre area that they will patrol. And in most cases that involves patrolling on neighbors land, and here we had one or two neighbors that were not keen on that idea.
After those two dogs retired, we started looking for a close guarding breed the one that through years of research continued to rise to the top again and again is the Spanish Mastiff breed. Quality registered dogs are very rare in this country, and very difficult to get. We were fortunate enough to be able to purchase one and import her from Moscow, Russia after waiting for over 2 years. The male in the one picture is a percentage Spanish mastiff, crossbred with an Anatolian Shepherd. His name is Timber. They are very affectionate toward us, and will bark but not be aggressive toward other humans. That is in part because they were both purchased at 4:00 and six months of age. Litters born here out in the field with the sheep, as is common with working LGD dogs, will display more aggressive tendencies toward both strangers, neighborhood dogs, and all predator type animals.
Timber is actually taller then Bella, but lighter in build. She will weigh about 150 lbs mature. She is 5 months old, and he is 7 months old.
She is a big clumsy oaf, and loves running into us, and knocking us over...
