Livestock Guardian Dogs

As many of you know I have Sarplaninac Livestock Guardian dogs to help protect our flocks from predators, and I must admit they are very good at what they do.

We chose the sarplaninac however there are many LGD breeds that can and do the job as well.

I have very little breed bias, I love all working dogs and to watch a good dog work , be it a stock dog or guardian dog, just makes me happy.

I am in the process of preparing a presentation that I will be giving to sheep people about guardian dogs. As I wanted to have a broad representation of breeds and situations, I asked a number of friends to contribute some photographs of their dogs at work.

Here is just a small sample of what I was sent.

(Thanks LGD List people!!)

This hairy beast is called a Tibetan Dokhyi, he belongs to Judy Steffel.

Chosing a high spot to oversee their kingdom is a very typical behavior pattern for guardian dogs.

He watches over his goats.

Before Lisa Richards had guardian dogs, she was losing a lot of her turkeys to predators. Once she got her trio of  Great Pyranese she has had no loses since then.

Kris Paige introduces her new guardian dog Bear to her lamas.

Some people keep lamas to guard their flocks,

others keep guardian dogs to protect their lamas.

Lori Lancaster breeds mini ponies.

That means when mini's get babies, the resulting foals are very small.

However, this anatolian watches over them.

Guardian dogs have a strange behavor pattern..

They will aggressively take on bears, wolves and other predators to protect what they regard as "theirs",

and yet will be gentle with new born lambs.

If  a guardian dog adopts something, they will lay their lives down to protect it.
This anatolian is from Mary Kellogg. I am sure this kitty feels totally safe and loved!

I love this photo of Sally Scholle's Pyranees leading its flock in!

In a lambing pen,

there is always enough space for a ewe, her lamb and a dog!

This is another one of Sally Scholle's dogs.

 I have many more pictures and will share them in some future blogs!