I suspect anyone who has used livestock guardian dogs (LGDs) to protect livestock has experienced at least one of the following interactions with non-ranchers:

• A call or conversation with a neighbor, complaining about the dog barking;
• An email (often anonymous) from a neighbor about the dog barking;
• A visit from animal control about (a) the dog barking, (b) the fact that the dog is outside ALL OF THE TIME, or (c) all of the above;
• A call from animal control that a well-meaning person "found" a stray big white dog and brought it into the animal shelter.

And the list probably goes on!

These complaints, in my experience, reflect a number of misconceptions. Most people think of dogs as pets, and expect that working LGDs should be treated as such (which apparently means letting them sleep inside). A surprising number of people here in the foothills have never seen any of our local predators (especially mountain lions) and so have no idea of the threat these predators pose to livestock. And virtually nobody who doesn't use a dog to protect livestock understands the types of behaviors that make for an effective LGD.

Nine summers ago, I received an anonymous email from a neighbor complaining about our LGD awakening him at 5 a.m. and suggesting that we use a bark collar on him. While my initial inclination was to respond immediately (and angrily), my wife urged me to sleep on my response (and, as usual, she was right about this!). Here's how I ultimately responded:

Sorry to hear that our dogs have inconvenienced you.  As you may not know, we are in the commercial sheep business.  All of our dogs are an essential part of our business - either as herding dogs or as livestock guardian dogs (LGDs).  While most of our operation exists on leased land around Auburn, we do keep some sheep and goats at our home place.  These are generally animals that require special care - orphaned lambs that must be bottle-fed 2-3 times daily, older sheep and goats that require special care and feeding, and an occasional injured or sick animal.  Our property is zoned "Farm" by Placer County, which permits these commercial activities.

Sheep and goats are vulnerable to predators like coyotes, mountain lions and domestic dogs - even in a neighborhood like ours.  Indeed, the only animals we've ever lost to predators were killed by a neighbor dog two years ago in our back pasture.  At that time, we did not have any LGDs with the sheep.  The neighbor dog was observed chasing sheep into the irrigation ditch and killing them for sport - we lost 4 ewes in the attack.  Since that time, we've tried to make sure that we are always protecting our animals (and our livelihood).  Our LGDs are critical to this effort.

LGDs instinctively respond to anything they perceive as a threat to the animals they are guarding.  The best LGDs are raised with the animals they spend their lives guarding - our dogs have been with sheep from the moment they were whelped.  Their first response to a perceived threat is to bark.  If the threat persists, an LGD will aggressively challenge the threat.  Sometimes the threat is readily apparent to us humans; other times it is not.  We have experienced our dogs barking at the scent or sound of a coyote, which we only discovered later.  We've also noticed that our LGDs can learn about routine - for example, they don't bark at folks who walk their dogs past our place at the same time everyday.  Since barking is part of their guarding behavior, discouraging an LGD from barking will ruin the dog's effectiveness.

When we have LGDs at our home place, we are especially aware of their barking - both because it represents a potential threat to our livestock and because we want to be good neighbors.  When a dog sounds a warning bark (and we've found that LGDs only bark when they are trying to warn off a perceived threat), we'll check it out - even in the middle of the night.  Most of the time, our dogs relax and stop barking once we've responded to their warning barks.

I would like to invite you to visit our operation at some point.  The partnership that we've developed over many years with both our herding dogs and our LGDs represents an amazing relationship between humans and dogs.  We could not operate a commercial sheep business without this partnership, and watching our dogs work - even for us - is a wonderful experience.  Also, we'd be glad to forward you additional information regarding LGD behavior and training.

Several days later, I received this response:

Thank you for your reply and detailed information regarding your business. We wish you the best success for your business! Someday my wife and I will come by and see your farm.

Thanks again for understanding and making great efforts in keeping the barking to a minimum as much as possible. We too have a dog, so we do understand.

While I still don't know who this neighbor was (and they still haven't visited our operation), we haven't had any further problems at our home place.

When we're grazing sheep away from home, we try to reach out to neighboring landowners and the recreating public about our LGDs using a variety of techniques. We'll let neighbors know that the dogs will bark when there's something to bark at - this may be a coyote, or it may be a pet cat. Occasionally, we'll use signage to let people know there are dogs protecting our livestock (USDA-Wildlife Services has a great weather-proof poster available here: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/newsroom/publications?search=livestock%20dogs). The Idaho Rangeland Resources Commission (https://idrange.org/) has also produced a weather-proof sign.

I'm often asked if there are particular LGD breeds that are less likely to bark. In my experience, barking varies more by individual than by breed - all LGD breeds are inclined to bark as a first line of protection. Our older dogs, typically, bark less - I suspect that experience often equals better judgment about what is a threat (and what isn't). When we're working in an area where neighbors are particularly sensitive to barking, we'll try to use an older dog if possible.

Finally, we've discovered that trail cameras can help us educate neighbors (and the public) about the predators in our environment. Last year, we photographed a mountain lion on a well-used community trail about 30 yards from where our ewes were lambing. Nobody in this neighborhood had seen a lion before; suddenly, they were happy to have an alert (and barking) dog nearby!

LGDs are not appropriate in every situation. While they may keep raccoons out of a suburban backyard chicken coop or away from pet pygmy goats, there are generally better options for protecting livestock in suburban settings. As a farm advisor, most of the calls I've received in the last 4-plus years have been about LGDs in these kinds of settings. Predator-proof fencing, night penning, and FoxLights are usually effective in these situations - and less annoying to the neighbors. But in a commercial setting, LGDs may be the best option for protecting livestock - explaining how and why these dogs work is an important part of using them effectively.

An Overview of the California Vegetation Treatment Management (CalVTP) Program

More than 18 months ago, the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection approved the California Vegetation Management (CalVTP) Final Program Environmental Impact Report (Program EIR). If you're like me, you probably wonder what this alphabet soup of bureaucratic acronyms means – and what it as to do with targeted grazing and fuel-load reduction! The bottom line – the CalVTP is good news for our foothill communities and for the grazers who are working to make us all more fire safe!

Projects that use state funding to manage fuel loads – or that are on state or local government-owned lands – must evaluate the environmental impacts of these activities, under the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). As you might imagine, completing a full CEQA analysis (or EIR) of every possible project can present a financial and logistical barrier for project proponents. As the state began to prioritize fuel-load reduction projects through funding from CalFire, the Board of Forestry realized that a streamlined process would be necessary if we were going to treat 250,000-500,000 acres a year (a goal established by Governor Newsom). The CalVTP is the vehicle for this streamlined process!

Overall, the purpose of the CalVTP is to reduce wildfire risk and promote resiliency. To accomplish this task, CalFire hopes to increase the pace and scale of vegetation treatments by streamlining CEQA review. Project proponents (state and local agencies, or the recipients of state funding) can adhere to a set of Standard Project Requirements (SPRs) designed to avoid and minimize environmental impacts and comply with applicable laws and regulations. In other words, a local community or agency can commit to this list of requirements and obtain CEQA coverage (rather than doing a full-blown EIR on its own).

Projects must either be within the “treatable landscape” (defined as land within the State Responsibility Area that is at risk of wildfire), or adjacent to these lands. And the types of projects covered include fuel reduction projects in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), the construction of fuel breaks, and ecological restoration.

Most importantly, however, from a grazing perspective is the fact that the CalVTP (and by extension, the Board of Forestry) recognizes “prescribed herbivory” (a fancy way of saying targeted grazing) as one of five covered treatment activities covered in the environmental analysis. This means that targeted grazing is on equal footing with other fuel-load reduction tools (like prescribed fire, mechanical treatment, manual treatment, and herbicide application). This means that state and local agencies, local communities, and others can receive funding from state grants for targeted grazing projects and know that these activities have CEQA coverage!

Why is this a big deal?! From my experience, it represents an explicit acknowledgment that grazing is an important fuels management tool – that grazing livestock are important beyond the production of food and fiber! The CalVTP puts grazing on a level playing field with these other treatments!

What does this mean for us locally? If you are a targeted grazer, you can help communities, agencies, and organizations develop funding proposals for fuel-load reduction projects. You can assist these organizations in developing the Project Specific Analyses that will ensure coverage under the Program EIR – and there will be funding available for this during the winter of 2021-22. Most importantly, this means more opportunities for partnerships between grazers and communities who want to make our region more fire safe! Sometimes acronyms mean good news!

Our ongoing journal about our efforts to bond a livestock guardian dog pup with cattle. Funded by the Rustici Rangeland and Cattle Endowment.

After spending about a week with a handful of rams in Auburn, we scheduled an afternoon to set up a bonding pen at Likely Land and Livestock in Modoc County last week. The pup (named Sam by the ranch!), rode in a crate in the back seat of the pickup. He was unhappy about the crate for about the first 4 miles; after that he slept for most of the 5-hour drive! We stopped twice to stretch our legs and get a drink – which meant he got his first lessons on a leash. He did great! And once we arrived, we tethered him to a fence post while we set up our equipment – lesson number 2 was also a success!

The ranch provided seven small calves for the bonding process. The calves are in a small irrigated pasture grazing and being hand-fed grain. Size-wise, they aren't much larger than the rams that Sam had been with. To make sure Sam stays with the calves, we cut the pasture in half using electro-net fencing (including along the perimeter fence) – the initial bonding pen is about one acre in size. We also built a small 8' x 8' escape pen from wire panels where he can go if he feels threatened by the calves. Upon completing the fencing and pen, we fed Sam and made sure that he saw the calves (and vice versa). And then we left them for the night!

When Rachael Stucke, a UCCE intern, showed up the next morning to feed him, Sam was sleeping in the middle of the calves – a great sign! We still have a long road ahead, but the first steps have all been positive!

During this initial phase, we'll will observe Sam on a regular basis from a distance for evidence of prey drive, submissive behavior towards livestock, and a calm temperament. While some things like chasing stock can be corrected if dealt with sternly and immediately, other things like dominant behavior towards livestock is more difficult to change in a pup. Pups tend to be easily excited when humans are with them, but when observed from a distance he should slowly approach livestock and remain calm unless he is alerted to a predator or unknown animal at their location. The livestock should remain calm, as well.

Specifically, we'll watch for evidence of the following behaviors:

• Prey Drive: this includes stalking behavior, as well as chasing or biting the livestock. If any of us do observe this behavior, we'll correct it by saying “NO” in a gruff voice. As Sam matures, he should not exhibit these behaviors at all.
• Submissive Behavior: Sam will likely be curious but somewhat cautious at first around the cattle. Appropriate submissive behaviors include avoiding eye contact with the cattle, walking (rather than running) when approaching cattle, dropping to the ground or rolling over when near cattle, lowering the head and tail, licking at the mouths of the cattle, and choosing to sleep next to the cattle.
• Calm Temperament: We think we've selected a pup with a calm temperament, but we will to be sure he's not overly aggressive, fearful, shy, or clingy; he should also not be overly excited to see people. We'll watch for him to walk off by himself after greeting us or being fed.

If the cattle are being too rough with him, we will try different cattle. Similarly, if Sam starts being too rough, older cattle may help teach the pup to be submissive and respectful.

After our initial set-up day, Rachael observed that Sam seems to want to be with the calves when there are not people around. He will follow people in his pen, and he will whine briefly when people leave (which are normal behaviors). She also noted that the calves seem to be comfortable around Sam. She did observe some play behavior, which provoked the calves to lunge gently. Sam responded by trotting way from the calves or showing submissive behavior.

Going forward, the ranch will do most of the observation and virtually all of the early care and training. Several times a week, someone will spend 5-10 minutes socializing Sam to humans. They'll rub their hands all over the dog, especially his feet, and place their fingers inside his mouth to check tooth development. They'll also check ears for ticks and infections and brush him if possible.

After the first month, they'll begin teaching basic commands. Sam should know his name and come when he's called (or at least not run off!). He should also know the meaning of “No!” Critically, we'll always make sure any and all positive reinforcement (praise, etc.) is done in an area with livestock!

They'll also continue the leash and tether training I started on our trip to Likely. Leash training should start out slowly (maybe 2-3 minutes at a time) until Sam will walk without pulling away from his handler. Tether training is important in case he ever gets caught in a snare. Tethering is also useful when working cattle or doing other activities where the dog might get in the way.

Teaching Sam to ride in the pick-up truck and stock trailer is also important. Early on, he should learn to ride in the cab of the truck or in a crate. As he grows, he can be taught to ride in the back of a pickup and in a stock trailer.

As with training or bonding with any animal, this won't be a linear process. Some lessons will probably need to be learned several times; other lessons will be solid the first time through. But we're off to a promising start!

Livestock producers from Southern Europe to Central Asia have long used livestock guardian dogs (LGDs) to protect livestock - including cattle - from predators like wolves and European brown bears (the continental version of our grizzly). Here in the United States, sheep and goat producers have been using these dogs for nearly half a century with good success. U.S. cattle producers, on the other hand, don't have much experience with LGDs. But with the return of state-endangered gray wolves to California (three packs are currently established and transient wolves periodically move through), interest in non-lethal livestock protection tools - including LGDs - is growing amongst cattle producers.

Along with several of my UCCE colleagues, I received a small grant from the Rustici Rangeland and Cattle Endowment at UC Davis to demonstrate how to bond a LGD with cattle. Earlier this month, Likely Land and Livestock in Modoc County offered to collaborate with us - and this week, we found a pup! Next week, I'll deliver the dog and all of the necessary bonding "equipment" to Likely!

The bonding process is critical to the success of any LGD. When pups are 8-20 weeks of age, their brains are especially receptive to forming social bonds - if you've had a pet dog, you'll know that this period is when we try to socialize the pup by exposing it to all sorts of situations and people. With a LGD pup, this period is crucial for creating a bond between dog and livestock. Having used LGDs in my own sheep operation for 15 years, I seem to learn something new every time I start a pup.

Part of this bonding process involves my own behavior. I'm a sucker for puppies, so it takes a real effort on my part not to over-socialize with these cute white fuzzballs. Since these dogs need to spend their lives living with and protecting livestock, we need them to prefer the company of livestock to humans. And my early interactions with a pup are an important part of this process. I should be a source of food and health care, but not the kind of affection we typically show to a puppy - in other words, I need to be somewhat aloof.

Bonding also requires the right kind of physical set up. I want to create an environment where the pup has to interact with livestock. While a successfully bonded dog won't want to escape, a young puppy naturally wants to respond to all external stimuli. Since we use electro-net fencing with our sheep, I usually put the pup with a handful of mature sheep (ewes or rams) inside of electric fence. Typically, the pup learns quickly that the fence has a pop to it - and that life is good when it stays close to the sheep (who already know about the fence).

On Wednesday, my colleague Carolyn Whitesell, the human-wildlife interactions advisor with UCCE in the Bay Area, picked up our pup from a goat producer near Tracy. Since we couldn't get to Likely until next week, we decided to put the pup with a handful of rams at my home place - the pup had been reared with goats, so we thought the rams would be a good option.

As soon as the puppy was left with the rams, he promptly decided that he could get through the bottom section of the electro-net - even though he got shocked. But imagine all of this from the pup's point of view. In one day, he was separated from his siblings and mother, had his first experience in a dog crate and in a moving vehicle, only to arrive at another farm where there were sheep, chickens, horses, mules, and other dogs. I suspect he was a little overwhelmed! We needed to get a little creative.

While all of this was happening, I was on the east side of the Sierra crest, collecting data for another project. Sami came up with a potential solution—why not put up some electrified poultry netting (which has a smaller grid pattern) along the section of electro-net fencing where the pup had been escaping? She put the puppy in our kennel while she set up the poultry netting and then placed the puppy back with the rams. Problem solved! Even though he could have still scooted through other sections of the paddock fence, he now thought he had to stay with the rams. And stay he did!

By the time I got home that evening, the pup had decided he liked the rams. I watched him lick their faces and roll onto his back in front of them (signs of appropriate submissiveness). The next morning, at feeding time, he decided he needed to be in the scrum at the hay bunk (signs of appropriate attentiveness).

The next test will be to take the poultry netting down and make sure he'd still prefer to be with his livestock even without this physical barrier. If he passes this test, I'll be comfortable putting him with calves inside an electro-net paddock next week! Stay tuned!