Responsible LGD Ownership

Two LGD alerting to some thing in the bush. This alerting can be in the form of loud barking and chasing away predators. Not every neighbor appreciates big dogs barking.

Responsible LGD Ownership

©Louise Liebenberg

May 2019

Written for The Shepherds Magazine

I was recently contacted by law enforcement officers to help them better understand how Livestock Guardian Dogs (LGD) work, what their roles are and what responsible LGD ownership looks like. This came about because of a situation that they have in their county with a sheep producer and his LGD and angry neighbors. 

Complaints from the neighbors, roaming LGD, and livestock harassment, the result; two shot dogs and conflict in the neighborhood. 

I have decided to write a little about what I think responsible LGD ownership looks like. It is an important topic, that needs to be considered by each individual rancher and perhaps even various sheep industry groups. With activists on the ready to report anything, Peta and the Human Society trying to stop the use of working animals, uninformed but well-intentioned individuals, and perhaps a lack of knowledge from Animal Control or local law enforcement it is important to regularly address these topics. 

I welcomed the chance to speak to the law enforcement officers to help them better understand the roles and issues around LGD.

In this case of the sheep rancher and his neighbor; one of these dogs roamed away from the owner’s livestock and was caught harassing the neighbor’s cattle. The neighbor shot the dog, which he can legally do here in Alberta.  The owner claimed the dog was protecting the livestock, but the neighbor did not ask for this, nor did he appreciate the dog being among his cattle. Of course, we never know if the dog was truly harassing them, or if this is simply a conflict between neighbors and the dog paid the price for this conflict. We know that the dog was not on the owner’s land at the time, no sheep were around, and the dog was found between the cattle on the neighbor’s land. 

It is ultimately the responsibility of the owner of the LGDs to ensure they stay with their own livestock and on their own land.

A dog that works on the range or on forestry land  has vast acres to work on, usually relies on being bonded to the stock and the shepherd to keep him relatively close by, and in these situations fencing is not  do-able.  There are no neighbor’s that complain and there is little opportunity for the dog to be nuisance. In some areas, dogs will roam between bands of sheep and that is usually okay between band owners in such situations.  Unless you have a very large acreage and no neighbors, the owner cannot rely solely on the dog being “bonded” to the sheep to keep it home. A good LGD will chase off a coyote and will not stop at a property line that is not a physical barrier. Dogs do not understand our concept of property lines, for those who advocate always walking the boundary of the property line to “teach” the dog where these lines are, cannot rely on this method to stop the dog from leaving this area. For the dog, these boundary walks is nothing more than a walk with the owner, the dog will not respect this imaginary line unless other training techniques are employed, and even then, hot on a chase after a coyote, those lessons are soon forgotten.

If your dog can leave your land and get onto someone else’s land, then there is an issue. The owner of that land has every right to complain and be unhappy. In some cases, roaming dogs will fight with neighbors’ dogs, poop in their yard and bark at them. The roaming dog is also a liability as it could cause a vehicle accident, injure someone or something. There really is no excuse for your dog to not be in your pasture with your stock. Your dog does not have to be the local neighborhood watch.

For those anti-fencer folks that think that bonding alone should be enough, then you have never met a determined LGD that is serious about pushing predators back.  In Europe, where these breeds originate, there is more tolerance among neighbors and shepherds. Sheep are rarely grazed without a shepherd close by, the shepherd will ensure the dog stays close to the sheep and does become a nuisance. When the LGD are not working, they are most often chained and contained in this manner.

I understand that in some cases, dogs do escape, but this should be a rare event and you should be doing everything in your power to ensure that it does not happen again. You need to apologize to your neighbors, make amends, be polite and respectful when this does happen. On a range situation if dogs roam and go missing, you should be doing everything in your power to find them and return them to their sheep band. Having good relationships with your neighbors or neighboring sheep band, makes life a lot easier, when a simple call that your dog is missing is met with “I will keep and eye out for him”, rather than a gun and law enforcement.

Some people question why would one need a LGD if one has to have such secure fencing? This is an appropriate question to ask.  In many cases, good fencing is good enough to keep predators at bay. Not every situation warrants the use of an LGD, and in many situations I do not even think LGD are the appropriate tool for the job.  We have good fencing, but we also have times when trees fall on the fence, or a bear digs a huge hole under the fencing. Predators can still get onto our land, so our fencing is not built to keep predators out but is built to keep the livestock in and the dogs contained.

Responsible ownership also means being realistic about the use and function of an LGD. One seriously needs to examine if the 20 hens truly need a dog or would a good chicken coop suffice? The very small livestock keeper can probably get away with deterrents such as fox lights, good fencing, penning in a barn and other forms of protection for their stock. 

If you have neighbors close by, then the use of an LGD needs to be very seriously considered. One needs to seriously weigh the advantages and disadvantages of owning an LGD.  LGD do bark, they are intimidating when they bark at someone, if your neighbors are active outside, then an LGD is likely to react to this by barking.  In many instances LGD and neighbors close by, often end up in a conflict situation.

A responsible owner is considerate to the fact that having a big barking dog might cause issues with the neighbors and perhaps in a conversation with the neighbors, livestock protection can be discussed and see what the best solution is. Informing neighbors, about LGDs goes a long way to ensure that if a dog is introduced, that the neighbors would be more positive towards it and possibly more tolerant of the dogs doing their job. 

Identifying your dogs is another part of good LGD management. In range situations possibly a sheep paint marker on each dog would identify which band it belongs to. In pastured systems, a collar with a phone number, a microchip or tattoo are good ways to help identify the dogs. In some areas, where more people have LGD, dogs can often be mistaken for yours, and then issues can arise due to this. Identify your dogs, so that if they do escape, people can readily find you as an owner.

Having a conversations with your neighbors, animal control and your local law enforcement goes a long way to foster good relations and better understanding of how these dogs work.  When the law enforcement officers contacted me, they were open to learn what is normal LGD behavior, what can be expected of the dogs and the owner, to help prevent an escalation of the conflict. The questions they asked included things such as is it normal for a LGD to be more than 50 feet away from the sheep, is it normal for the dog to want to chase away “strange” cattle, how would the dog’s life be impacted if it was contained in the barn for long periods of time, what do they actually do when it comes to predators, why do they roam and many more questions of this nature. I am happy that they took the time and effort to learn more about these dogs and their behavior so that they could try and resolve the sticky situation between the sheep and the cattle rancher neighbors.

The old adage, good fences, make good neighbors certainly does apply to LGD use in areas with more people close by.

Failure or Success in LGD

Absolute failure is usually when a dog shows to be untrustworthy with the livestock.

Failure or Success in LGD

©Louise Liebenberg 2019

Written for The Shepherds Magazine

Ray Coppinger talks about the three key factors that makes a Livestock Guardian Dog (LGD) successful or not. These three elements are the cornerstone traits of LGD; trustworthiness, attentiveness and protectiveness. When livestock guardian dogs fail, despite; good breeding, an experienced shepherd and great selection, then it can normally be attributed to problems with either a lack of attentiveness, trustworthiness and, or protectiveness. These three traits are what differentiate LGD from other farm dog breeds, and these parameters define how well the dog does its job. To this day some researchers still utilise Coppinger’s system of scoring the dogs on effectiveness based on these three parameters.

When accessing LGD, most issues that arise can be attributed to a lack of these traits. Not staying with stock, roaming, ignoring predators, non-responsive behaviour when sheep are stressed, little social interaction towards the livestock, lack of nurturing behaviour or even fearfulness, can all be attributed to a lack of attentiveness by the LGD towards the livestock.

When dogs show a lack of trustworthiness problems such as harassing the livestock, play behaviour, predatory behaviour, rough, wool pulling, ear chewing, aggressiveness, herding, sexual mounting and showing forceful dominance towards the livestock are manifested.

When the dog lacks the protectiveness to guard against predators, these dogs will often not engage predators,  “allow” predators to predate on the livestock, form social/breeding bonds with predators, low response to predators such as barking when coyotes yip, fear or predators pushing the LGD out of an area.

The presence of an LGD close to the flock works as a deterrent to predators. Without a dog close by the flock would be more vulnerable to predation.

These three behavioural traits need to be balanced; a dog might be trustworthy; because it is totally inattentive towards the livestock. This is often the case with the “all round” farm dog. He is trustworthy in that he will not attack the sheep or chickens, but that trait alone does not make him an LGD. Folks, that say that there Labrador is a great livestock guardian dog are only thinking about the trustworthiness trait and forget that the dog also needs to be attentive of the sheep’s behaviour and be protective enough to stand up and engage a predator.

An LGD can be untrustworthy; because it is disruptively attentive. This dog might be too involved, stealing lambs from the ewes, or always racing through the flock to bark at a leaf falling off a branch in the forest. There response can have a negative effect on the livestock who will not be able to settle down and graze. An untrustworthy dog will often not be trusted around the livestock as it will be wool pulling, chewing ears, harassing, chasing, biting and harming the livestock.

Some dogs might show a lack of protectiveness, despite been trustworthy, not because of lack of aggression toward potential predators, but because of their inattentiveness toward the sheep. This dog simply does not care what happens to the livestock. He does not regard the sheep as his, to be protective over. He might be a fantastic “guard dog” but he is still not a livestock guardian. A wolfhound will run down a coyote or a wolf, but that fact alone, does not make him an LGD, he will still lack the trustworthiness and the attentiveness to be successful at this job.

Failure is a very subjective term, what counts as a failure for one shepherd might not be regarded as a failure by another. Everyone knows that not every LGD is successful at its job, some are failures. These failures can be “man made” and some are inherent in the dog.  In Georgia, Robin Rigg conducted some research on LGD, and they found that owners rated their dogs as “good” (61%) or “partially good” (22%) which leaves about 17% as being “not good”. Does this translate into 17% of those LGD being failures? Everyone knows that not every LGD is cut out for the job. Failing in their job is “normal” within any working breed of dog. Not every border collie is equally able to work livestock, not every retriever has a soft mouth and not every rat terrier is an expert rat killer

The mandate for a successful livestock guardian dog is two-fold; firstly, it needs to protect the livestock from depredation and secondly, the dog should not kill/harm the livestock it is supposed to protect.  This seems straight, clear, black and white with very little gray area in between. If the dog does not protect the livestock or kills the stock, then it is a failure, right? 

What accounts for failure? The owners who rated their dogs as “not good” responded that the dogs showed a lack of attentiveness towards the livestock, the dog’s fear of wolves, poor breeding and a failure to train them as pups.  Perhaps, failure is not absolute, 22% of the respondents on that study still found their dogs to be “partially good” despite them being less attentive, not protective enough or they were attentive, but fearful of wolves when compared to the “good dogs”. 

Failure (or success) is possibly best measured on a scale of effectiveness. If the dog is good, it is effective in its duties as a LGD, partially good is that it is somewhat effective and failure is when it is never effective or a liability to the flock.

A dog that roams may be 100% ineffective if it is not with the sheep and partially effective when it is with the sheep.   A dog that is fearful of wolves may be partially effective in supporting other dogs within the pack against a predatory attack. It is well known that just the presence of having the LGD close to the flock, has a deterring effect on predators, so that alone, will make the dogs somewhat effective.

Sometimes circumstances can change the perception of effectiveness of the dog,  LGD that never stays with its band, could be a very effective guardian dog in a pastured and fenced system, a dog who is fearful of large predators might work very well in a pack situation with multiple other dogs or in a situation where the predator load is light and only dealing with smaller predators. I have known dogs who were not reliable with newborn lambs but were phenomenal guardians once the lambs were a little older.  The owner understood the value of this dog despite its untrustworthiness around newborn stock and chose to remove this dog from lambing animals and utilise him where he was very effective. It is often the willingness of the shepherd to work with the dog, that determines if the dog is a failure or not.  

I believe that when we evaluate our LGD on their effectiveness, much of what we perceive as “good” is very much based on our own biases and circumstances.  It is interesting to note that Rigg found that the owners of “pure bred” dogs were more satisfied with the performance of their dogs when compared to those who had mixed breeds,  despite no significant differences between livestock losses or how the owners rated their dogs.

One thing is clear, there are no absolutes when it comes to LGD. The degree of effectiveness of an LGD is correlated to its attentiveness towards the livestock, aggression towards predators and its trustworthiness. Dogs who were regarded as “partially good” where still somewhat effective in their roles. Absolutely failure, is primarily the result of a lack of trustworthiness. 

An LGD that is attentive, trustworthy and protective of his stock is an effective LGD.

References:

Coppinger, L. C. (1978). Livestock Guardian Dogs. Amherst MA.: Hampshire College.

Coppinger, R., Coppinger, L., Langeloh, G., Gettler, L., & and Lorenz, J. (1988). A DECADE OF USE OF LIVESTOCK GUARDING DOGS. Proceedings of the Thirteenth Vertebrate Pest Conference. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/vpcthirteen

Robin Rigg, G. G.-Z. (Summer 2017). Livestock Guardian Dogs in Georgia: A tradtion in need of Saving? (S. Ribeiro, Ed.) Carnivore Damage Prevention News(15), pp. 19-27.

Traditional LGD Food

LGD in Macedonia just leaves the communal feed trough that is filled with the staple for shepherding dogs, a bread or porridge, mixed with scraps and either milk or whey.

Traditional LGD food.

©Louise Liebenberg  March 2019

Written for The Shepherds Magazine

We are slowly coming out of a very long and brutal two-month winter period and that is a big relief. We have had temperatures for weeks between minus 22 and minus 40 Fahrenheit, with just the odd day of reprieve here and there.  Were we live (in the sub-arctic zone), we are used to severe cold, but normally it only lasts a week or so and then it warms up a bit, this last winter was a long haul!  The extreme cold certainly took a toll on all the animals. We have used much more feed (hay and grain) than originally anticipated to both the cattle and sheep, to help them through this cold. The “outside” ewes who are only due to lamb in spring, seemed to have maintained their condition well with their winter woollies. The ewes that lambed in December are in the barn, we can see that the cold was a little harder on the lamb with their growth rate a little behind than other years.  The livestock guardian dogs (LGDs) certainly spend more time hunkered down between the sheep or snuggled in a straw bale. They rarely use the dog houses, preferring the warmth and companionship of the sheep and cattle.  One of our seven-month-old pups really learnt to bed down with the replacement heifers. Cold weather certainly does help with the whole bonding process.

With very cold weather, I like to feed the LGDs twice a day, to ensure they have enough energy to keep warm and maintain condition. I will go from once-a-day feeding, to twice a day, morning and evening. I notice a dramatic increase in the amount of food the dogs will consume when it is so frigid. The amount I feed will almost double.  While chatting to a friend and sheep rancher colleague, she mentioned that in this cold she decided to feed her dogs some “YAL” as she liked the dogs to have a nice “warm belly full of mush”. I am not really a dog food “foodie”, and when folks start talking about dog foods as though they are talking abut human health products, things like this usually tend to go in one ear and out the other. The word “YAL” got my attention, I knew what it was but was not something I had considered feeding our dogs but right now, this sounded like the perfect solution to help keep the dogs warm and increase their food intake. It is a challenge to get enough liquid into the dogs, as any liquid freezes instantly. By feeding a stew, rather than frozen meat or kibble, I would be able to increase the liquid intake for the dogs.  I decided to give YAL a try.

I rummaged around in my pantry and found a bag of quick oats, boiled it up, added some bacon grease and a pinch of salt. I made a big pot and fed this to the dogs along with their regular food of kibble and meat. The dogs wolfed it down. In a relatively easy manner, the dogs got a nice big bowl of warm food and plenty of liquid, and surprisingly, they seemed to really like it. I was concerned they would turn their noses up and not eat it, which self respecting dog would eat oat porridge?

This got me thinking more about traditional food for LGD. I remember seeing the dogs in Macedonia eating at a trough that had a bread and whey mix in it.  After doing a little more research and extra reading, it appears that most shepherding cultures across Europe, do feed a grain-based diet to the LGDs, supplemented with milk, whey, meat scraps and anything else that was left over. The dogs would get the afterbirths, dead lambs and other table scraps that were available. In some places, the dogs are fed a porridge type food, and in others a “bread” was made for the dogs. 

The communal feeding trough for the livestock guardian dogs. In the trough is bread that is usually mixed with water, milk or whey. This forms the basic diet for the LGD.

Güvener Işik writes extensively in his book “The Dogs on Anatolia” about the traditional food the dogs are fed in Turkey. “Yal” is a porridge of broken or flaked grain (mostly barley, oats, wheat, corn or in some cases bran). If only the flour version of those grains is available, then that is what is used. It is boiled with a pinch of salt and this forms the basis.  Added to this mix is often the left-over whey from the cheese making process, milk, yogurt and leftover table scraps such as vegetables and oil.  In North America we tend to forget those most of the shepherding cultures primarily utilize sheep for milk and cheese making. Every shepherding family makes a sheep cheese and the whey left from this process is added to the dog food. Whey fortifies the grain-based diet of the dogs, and due to its protein structure, a great addition to the Yal. Whey is an interesting protein source as it is neither meat based not plant based but comes from dairy. Protein, simply explained, is made up of various essential and non-essential amino acids.  Essential amino acids are those that dogs cannot self produce and needs to be consumed from an external source. Whey has one of the highest ratings for protein, when comparing common protein sources (chicken, beef, soy etc.) according to their quality, this includes how “bio-available” it is to the dog and how many of the essential amino acids are in the protein source.  (William Misner, n.d.)  It is clear to see why a basic diet of boiled grains, and whey formed a traditional dog food where both grains, and whey are readily available. 

In some areas a bread is baked as dog food.  In Spain the dogs are fed a rye bread called “perruna”. The rye bread is hard, black and weighs about 750 grams, it is easy to transport into the mountains and taken while grazing. Milk is added to the bread and this formed the basic diet.  Dating back to the 18^th Century, the shepherds and their dogs ate the same portion of food as the “La Mesta” rules determined. La Mesta was a powerful association of sheep ranchers who determined that the mastines were protected by law. These wolf fighting dogs were highly revered. The LA Mesta decided that the dogs should eat the same portion and bread as the shepherds themselves, for the brave work they do.

In Romania, the traditional food is very similar to the Yal the Turks feed. It is a mixture of “Zer” (whey) and a corn-based porridge called “Mamaliga”. Depending on what is available, the dogs would get mamaliga or bread, and zer. In a large pot the zer, mamaliga, some veggies and meat scraps are boiled into a soup/stew for the dogs.  Butcher scraps like the head of the animal and large bones were given to the dogs to eat as extra.

In Macedonia, we saw first hand how important cheese making is, every family makes its own cheese (a type of feta). The dogs are fed a mixture of bread and whey, along with dead lambs, afterbirths anything else the shepherds could spare, and even small game the dogs could hunt. I know, our dogs happily hunt mice to add to their diet!

Milking sheep to make cheese is a primary use for sheep in most shepherding cultures in Europe. The milk is used to make a feta type of cheese and the dogs get any left-over milk, whey, yogurt added to their basic diet. This Macedonian shepherd quickly milks an ewe during evening chores.

According to Güvener Işik, feeding a grain-based porridge or bread will result in pups growing slower and therefore will have a stronger skeletal system.  He mentions that Anatolians were selected for and evolved to being able to thrive on low calorie and low protein diets. As he states; “Overfeeding an Anatolian is abusing what the Anatolian inherited from its ancestors.”. He makes an interesting statement regarding feed and energy levels in dogs, stating that low energy food helps to scale the dogs’ energy level down to that of the sheep. We know with horses, one can feed them “hot” resulting in a high energy horse, so perhaps this is true for dogs as well?  It would be interesting to see if some high energy/naughty dogs would calm down if fed a lower energy and lower protein diet.

One thing I can conclude, that in the brutal cold we had, our dogs really seemed to appreciate having a warm, belly full of porridge. 

The staple food for LGDs, bread or porridge and scraps. In these areas the shepherds cannot access nor afford expensive industrially made kibble. The dogs eat what the people have on hand.

Reference

Işik, G. (2002). The Sheepdogs of Anatolia. Ankara: Library of Congress.

William Misner. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.hammernutrition.com/: https://www.hammernutrition.com/knowledge/endurance-library/protein-debate-which-protein-is-best/