Warm temperatures have been welcome, but our snow cover is long gone, and the resulting mud has dried. The animals seem to be enjoying the spring weather. In the photo above, Rena greets Buck, a bum lamb raised by a little girl who recently moved to Oklahoma, so Buck returned to the herd.
Rena is very kind to young animals, and yesterday afternoon, flopped over on her side to let Hud the herding dog beat her up - he was thrilled. Notice the lambs and herd standing nearby.
6 comments:
You realize you could go into the greeting card business with pictures like those, right?
Thanks Josh. These critters are pretty sweet and a blast to live with.
You realize you could go into the greeting card business with pictures like those, right?
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Definitely
Curious, the LPG's don't see the herding dogs as a threat to the livestock? If so, do they naturally know the difference or is it trained/taught into them? Thanks for all the great posts!
This seems a great place to tell a very interesting(humorous?) story a co-worker recently told me about his Livestock Guardian Dogs. He has two Italian Maremmas that live with and guard his sheep, goats, mini-donkeys, and lots of various poultry. Roaming dogs and coyotes would be the main threats around here(N. C.), although an occaisional bobcat or fox might attempt to snatch something. Anyway, one day he noticed a black chow-cross hanging out with his Maremmas, that are normally VERY aggressive to any strange dogs coming around--the three seemed like best buddies! And no, it WASN'T a female-in-heat(my first guess)--but an intact, adult male. The dog kept coming back, and every time he arrived, he had a big, juicy beef bone he would immediately surrender to the Maremmas! This has happened not once, but several times! Luckily, the chow-mix has shown no desire to bother any livestock--probably just wants to hang with the big dogs! This dog lives a good distance away, so must exert some effort/self-control to carry that big bone all that distance, just to give it up. So the question is, is this dog incredibly clever in utilizing a bribe for acceptance, or is it just an amazing set of coincidences? So Cat, you never know, beware of wolves/coyotes bearing gifts........
Our herding dogs are raised with the guardian dogs, and know each other as siblings know each other. These are bearded collie crosses and they are not aggressive with the sheep unless we are actually working sheep, and even then, they are "soft-mouthed." Our herding dogs show affection to the sheep, even licking their noses.
The guardians are good at reading what constitutes a threat. If a strange herding dog approached the herd, the guardians would kill it.
Our oldest guardian dog hates it when we put the herd into pens to work the sheep, and will often knock the herding dogs down, in order to keep us from bothering her sheep. When we load lambs into trailers for market, she runs along behind, crying, and then sulks for a few days.
These animals are intelligent creatures that have complex relationships, with deep bonds.
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