I realized last weekend that I hadn't posted any updates to my Livestock Guardian Dog journal for some time. Elko, our new pup, is growing quickly - and his behavior is evolving, too. As you might recall, we'd placed Elko in a paddock with an older ewe and several ewe lambs. One of the older ewe lambs had apparently decided Elko was her lamb, which was intimidating for the pup. At the same time, Elko had taken to trying to play with the younger ewe lambs. We decided that we needed to move him - both for his safety and comfort, and to help him understand that he shouldn't play with the sheep. We put him in a smaller paddock with two of our rams, which seemed to help. He's more respectful of the sheep, but the rams don't intimidate him like the ewe lamb did. We'll keep monitoring his behavior - he may go to the ranch to live with our entire ram battery once we separate them from the ewes. We'll also consider putting him with one of the older dogs for a few weeks (with sheep).

On Saturday, I also had a chance to observe some interesting behavior with our older dogs. We combined breeding groups last week, so both dogs are in the same paddock at the moment. Reno, who is approaching 10 years of age, is a neutered Anatolian male. Bodie, who will be 2 early next year, is an intact Anatolian-Maremma cross.

On several occasions in the past, Reno has killed raccoons that come into his paddock. If you've been around raccoons, you'll know that they can be fairly vicious - most dogs give them a wide berth. We always keep an eye on Reno after we find a raccoon to make sure he doesn't develop infections from bites. On Saturday morning after I fed the dogs, they both trotted to the far end of the 3 acre paddock and began barking at something in a small tangle of blackberries. As I approached, I realized that whatever it was they had cornered was snarling and defending itself.

Here's a video of what transpired:

I made several observations:

1. Reno is definitely still the alpha dog in this group. He took the lead in investigating and challenging the intruder to the paddock.
2. The sheep responded to the alarm raised by the dogs. Whether it was because they didn't like the barking or because they knew the dogs were communicating that there was an intruder, they decided to move away from the commotion.
3. Once I decided to move the sheep into a new paddock (to allow the intruder to escape - if you've watched the video, you'll know why), the dogs both decided to stay with the sheep rather than continue to try to get at the intruder. However, both dogs remained focused on the blackberry patch on the other side of the fence).

The literature I've read suggests that livestock guardian dogs may fill the ecological niche typically filled by wild canids in our environment (mostly coyotes in the foothills). The behavior I observed last weekend would fit this hypothesis, I think. Over the course of the next several months, I'll be using game cameras and GPS collars on both sheep and dogs to test this idea further - stay tuned! 

About 12 years ago, we acquired our first livestock guardian dog from a ranch in eastern Yuba County. Scarlet, as we named her, came to us as a 6-month old Akbash-Pyrenees pup. We were neophytes in the world of livestock guardian dogs, so we immediate put Scarlet with our breeding flock. The following February, when the first lamb hit the ground, Scarlet promptly decided that the lamb was hers; she chased the ewe away and cleaned the lamb. As we learned, maternal instinct can be a powerful force - in sheep and in dogs. A few days of watching her closely and scolding her when she tried to mother a lamb seemed to fix the problem.

This weekend, we experienced the opposite relationship. Our youngest daughter has her own small flock of sheep that she breeds for fair lambs. This fall, she's taken in a number of additional ewes from folks that want lambs from her ram. These sheep are in a pasture adjacent to the paddock where Elko (our LGD pup) is living. Emma also has several ewe lambs from this year that she recently sold; we're working on arrangements for the buyers (who are in Twin Falls, Idaho) to pick them up. The oldest of these ewe lambs came into heat this weekend, and her maternal instincts kicked in. Yesterday, we noticed that she was taking a keen interest in Elko. As we watched her, we realized that she was treating Elko like her lamb. She'd paw at him to get him to stand up (which ewes will do if they want their lambs to nurse). She licked him vigorously like she was trying to clean afterbirth off him. And she'd knicker at him like a ewe will do to call her newborn lamb.

Elko was intimidated by her behavior. He'd yelp if she backed him into a corner, and he'd nip at her if her licking became too aggressive. We decided that it would be best to separate them; we put the ewe lamb into a different paddock. Elko seems to be fine with the rest of the sheep in his pen.

I'm curious if others have observed this kind of behavior! What have you done when something like this has happened?

Over the course of the next several years, I intend to post regular blog entries about the development and management of a new livestock guardian dog puppy. This is my introductory post.

On Monday, we acquired Elko, a Pyrenees x Akbash pup, from Fred Groverman in Petaluma. With livestock guardian dogs, I'm less concerned with a specific breed (or combination of breeds) than I am with a pup's genetic and environmental background. I want a pup that comes from working parents, and I want a pup that was whelped and raised in close proximity to livestock. Elko meets both criteria.

There are two (at least) schools of thought about purchasing LGDs. Some producers (me included) prefer to purchase a pup at 8-12 weeks of age. In my experience, the period from 8-20 weeks of age is critical for forming social bonds between the dog and the livestock he/she will spend his/her life protecting. I think this phase is also critical for exposing the pup to our management system. Our dogs need to learn about electric fence. They need to learn that we move sheep (and dogs) frequently. They need to be comfortable with (but not bonded to) people. I'm still learning how to train these dogs; we've found that 30-40 percent of the puppies we start will work in our system. That said, I'm convinced that a dog works better when it's reared in the environment in which it will work. Other producers prefer to purchase older dogs that are ready to go to work - and there are dog breeders in the West that accommodate this demand. These older dogs are typically much more expensive - and usually guaranteed to work. Part of the cost of these older dogs, I think, is that the breeder assumes the risk that a particular dog won't work.

LGDs are capital expenses for a sheep or goat operation. In comparing the two systems I've outlined above, I think it makes sense to divide these costs into three categories: acquisition, development, and management. Acquisition costs include the cost of the pup and the expense involved in taking possession (mileage, usually). The development costs include veterinary and feed costs incurred up to the point where the shepherd decides the dog will fit the management system. Management costs are incurred from that point forward. I think these categories are useful for a couple of reasons. The actual cost of a working LGD should include both the acquisition costs and the development costs - and these are "stranded" costs when a dog doesn't work out. These are also the costs that are reflected in price of older dogs that are ready to go to work.

Our management costs are $500-600 per year per dog - this includes (primarily) feed and vet expenses. While Fred Groverman graciously gave Elko to us, I'm going to value our new pup as if we'd purchased him. Here are our acquisition and development costs to date:

Acquisition Costs
Purchase Price	$400.00
Mileage (230 miles RT @ $0.545/mile)	$125.35
Total	$525.35
Development Costs
Dog Food	$46.85
10-way Vaccine	$13.99
Total (as of 9/24/17)	$60.84

When I brought Elko home, we built a creep feeder for him (basically a pen in which he could eat without the sheep trying to steal his food). We exposed him to the electro-net we use to fence our sheep immediately - and he learned to avoid it immediately. We put him in a paddock with several ewe lambs and an older ewe to doesn't take any guff from any dog.

I've found that the sheep take some time to evaluate a new dog. For the first several days, the sheep avoided Elko. As of this morning (day 6), the sheep all seem to accept him. When I fed the sheep this morning, I observed the ewes following Elko to the fence. Later, I watched Elko licking the face of one of the ewe lambs - a sign of submission on Elko's part (and a sign of acceptance on the ewe lamb's part).

Over the next weeks, we'll keep an eye out for play behavior. As a pup becomes more comfortable with the sheep, we've seen some dogs begin to play roughly with the sheep. We discourage this behavior - most by "growling" (using a hard voice) with the pup. At this stage, this is really the only correction we'll make. We never correct a LGD pup for barking. And here's a humorous on barking - yesterday, Elko barked at me when I got home. Like a pre-teen boy, his voice hasn't changed! His bark is high-pitched, like a much smaller dog. I tried not to laugh where he could see me.

I'm hoping readers will ask questions and respond with their own observations of LGD development and behavior! This is the first of many posts, I'm sure!

Late last month, I participated in a workshop on livestock-wildlife co-existence at the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center. As I prepared for "demonstrating" livestock guardian dogs (LGDs), I struggled with how to show people what LGDs actually do. Whenever I host people at our own ranch, the dogs come to the fence to greet us, sniff the strangers (and occasionally bark at them), and lay down - not a terribly dynamic demonstration. While I've written extensively about my experience with LGDs on my personal blog (www.flyingmule.blogspot.com), the scientific literature regarding these dogs, their training, and their behavior, is rather slim. The four-hour drive home from Hopland provided ample time to think about opportunities for demonstrating LGD behavior and efficacy.

Demonstrating these attributes is equally difficult, though for different reasons. Measuring the efficacy of LGDs (or any nonlethal tool) is challenging because we can't measure what doesn't happen. I have no way of knowing how many lambs were not killed by predators because of a specific tool. Furthermore, my situation (in terms of habitat, sheep behavior, dog behavior and predator behavior) may be very different than my neighbor's. Similarly, demonstrating behavior is difficult in any kind of real-world setting. Watching a dog napping at midday is not very interesting for most of us. In the 12 years we've used LGDs in our sheep operation, I've never observed any direct interaction with a predator.

In light of these difficulties, I've started forming a plan for obtaining information that will help producers (and others) understand how LGDs work in different environments, as well as the economic and management considerations involved in using LGDs. With help from colleagues at UC Davis, UC Cooperative Extension, and other universities, I'm building GPS collars that will allow us to record LGD and sheep movement remotely. We'll also use game cameras to see if we can detect predator (or other wildlife) presence in the vicinity of the dogs. After I test these systems in our own sheep enterprise, I intend to work with other producers representing a variety of environments and management systems. My hope is that we'll be able to observe these dogs at work, as well as their interactions with sheep, using GPS in a variety of settings.

The second element of this project will provide a case study in the development and use of a specific dog. Earlier this week, I acquired an eleven-week-old male Pyrenees x Akbash puppy from Dr. Fred Groverman, a sheep producer in Petaluma. While Elko (as we've named him) will eventually go to work in our flock, I will document the training, management and expense involved in purchasing, developing and deploying a LGD pup. My intent with this part of the project is to regularly post information about Elko's development (both successes and challenges). I'll also post short videos on a regular basis to document his development and behavior.

As these efforts develop, I would appreciate input and questions from producers throughout the state! Do my observations and experiences match yours? Are there other approaches to developing a LGD that have worked (or haven't worked) for you? Are there other questions we should be asking ourselves?

Many of us refer to LGDs as livestock protection "tools." As biological (rather than mechanical) tools, however, using a LGD effectively is much more complicated than using a hammer! I'm hopeful this project will help all of us gain a better understanding of how these dogs work!