As you probably know if you've read previous posts on Ranching in the Sierra Foothills, my go-to tool for protecting sheep on our foothill rangeland and irrigated pasture is my livestock guardian dogs. Since we're trying to protect our sheep from carnivores, it makes sense to protect them with a carnivore! The right dog (or dogs) will protect our sheep from stray dogs, coyotes, mountain lions, black bears, foxes, and other predators. Check these previous posts to learn more about our livestock guardian dogs:

• Which Livestock Guardian Dog Breed?
• The LGD Puppy Journal - #1
• Livestock Protection Tools - Part 1

But livestock guardian dogs are not the only tool available! Some recent research suggests that an ever-changing mix of livestock protection tools may be necessary. Predators can adapt, and so must livestock producers. A 2017 paper in the Journal of Mammalogy tracked the adaptive use of a suite of nonlethal livestock protection tools in Idaho (see Stone et al. 2017, "Adaptive use of nonlethal strategies for minimizing wolf-sheep conflict in Idaho"). Other research acknowledges the difficulty designing experimental studies to analyze the effectiveness of specific tools (see Eklund et al. 2017, "Limited evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to reduce livestock predation by large carnivores").

But formal research isn't the only approach to determining whether a given tool works in a specific environment. On-the-ground use of these tools by ranchers in real-world production settings is invaluable. In my experience, the success or failure of a particular livestock protection tool depends, at least in part, on the paradigm and know-how of the person using the tool. I expect the livestock guardian dogs I've "trained" to work in my environment - and when they don't, I try to learn from my mistakes. My own hands-on experience with these dogs gives me a greater level of comfort in using them in a variety of settings. Similarly, my familiarity with electro-net fencing helps me adapt this tool to our environment.

Recently, a group of colleagues and I received grant funding to put on a series of Livestock Protection Tool Field Days in a number of northern California counties that have been visited by gray wolves (Nevada, Sierra, Plumas, Lassen, Modoc and Siskiyou). These field days will be held in late March 2019 (check the calendar on my website for exact dates - go to https://ucanr.edu/sites/Livestock/). In addition to providing information about using livestock guardian dogs in rangeland environments with both cattle and sheep, these field days will give producers an opportunity to set up and use some additional tools, including electro-net fencing, turbo fladry (an electrified fence with flapping red flags that apparently deters wolves), and FoxLights (a device that emits random flashes of light to mimic a person with a flashlight).

This week, we are testing the FoxLight devices in small foothill paddocks. I'll be setting up trail cameras to detect whether the coyotes and foxes are deterred by the lights - but the ultimate test will be a lack of predation! One of the lights is in a hard-wire paddock that has had coyote incursions in the past; the other is in an electro-net paddock. Stay tuned!

We've also purchased a half-mile of turbo fladry. Sometime in the next month, we'll set up a fladry barrier to familiarize ourselves with setting it up and taking it down. Stay tuned for information on this, as well!

As with any tools, there will be a learning curve for these new techniques. I've built lots of temporary electric fence, but laying out a quarter-mile of poly-wire with red vinyl flags will take a different technique. I'll need to learn to place the wire at the proper height to deter wolves. I'll need to figure out how to re-wind the fladry. As always, I'll track the cost of using these tools, as well. With livestock guardian dogs, the costs include dog food and vet bills. With fladry, the cost will mostly involve my own time.

Finally, I know that I learn best by doing. Reading about a technique or a tool is a helpful introduction, but I need to use these tools in a real-world setting to gain any sense about their effectiveness - and about my willingness to use them. I suspect many of you feel the same way! I hope you'll be able to make one of our field days in March!

On June 9, 2018, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife detected a signal from OR-54, a female gray wolf that had been collared in Oregon, near Andesite Peak in Nevada County (Andesite is southwest of Castle Peak, near the Sierra Crest). OR-54 had been traveling through the Sierra-Cascade range for several months; her foray into Nevada County marks the first know wolf in our part of the Sierra Nevada in over 100 years. While she appearst be traveling alone, she has since returned north to Sierra County; however, she'd been covering as much as 18 miles per day. She may well return southward as the summer progresses.

While ranchers are legitimately concerned with the potential impacts from gray wolves, other more common predators (like mountain lions, coyotes and black bears) can be more problematic in our region. And predators can have indirect impacts (like decreased weight gain, poor reproductive performance and added labor) in addition to causing direct losses.

In collaboration with my colleague Tracy Schohr (the livestock and natural resources advisor for Butte, Plumas and Sierra Counties), I have developed the following fact sheet to help ranchers understand and document these impacts:

Documenting Predator Impacts on Livestock

In the meantime, please contact our offices - or your local agricultural commissioner or wildlife services specialist - if you have specific questions!

Now that our Pyrenees x Akbash "puppy" Elko has nearly reached full-size, I have difficulty remembering he's still a puppy - a 120-pound puppy, but a puppy nonetheless. There are signs, however, that his brain is catching up with his body! Here are a few updates and observations.

For much of the winter and spring, Elko has been with our rams (who graze separately from our ewes except for a six-week breeding season). This allows us to keep Elko with livestock without great expectations that he'll need to provide protection - we find that our rams are less susceptible to predators, especially when we graze them at our home place. But this arrangement also gives Elko some sense of what his job will be when he's mature. He definitely seems bonded with sheep - while he's a friendly dog who is enthusiastic about feeding time, he'd prefer to spend his day in the company of ovines rather than humans - critical for a livestock guardian dog in our operation. The rams have also helped teach Elko some manners.

The next step in Elko's education has been to move him with the rams to another location. We typically move dogs with the sheep in the stock trailer; last Sunday, we hauled the rams and Elko to a pasture several miles away. I was encouraged to watch Elko walk the entire perimeter of the new field when we unloaded - that's something our working-age dogs do consistently.

After we wean the lambs in early June, we'll plan to put Elko with the dry ewes and one of our older dogs. Hopefully, the older dog will help Elko continue to learn about how to behave around different classes of sheep (much like our oldest dog, Reno, taught his protégé how to act around lambing ewes this winter). I'll keep you posted!

A final note: we typically have not had to clip our livestock guardian dogs in the summer - they don't seem to get stickers even if they're rough coated, and they seem to handle the summer heat just fine. Elko's coat is different, however; we'll likely give him a haircut before the end of the month.

Since I haven't posted an update to my Livestock Guardian Dog Journal for four months, I thought an update on this project might be timely! We've been training a new dog to work during lambing (with some interesting observations about behavior). We've trained the new dog to respect 3-wire temporary fencing (as opposed to electro-net). And we've been collecting GPS and trail camera data on predator interactions. Lots to report!

GPS Collaring / Remote Sensing Project

We have been putting GPS sensors on two livestock guardian dogs that are with a flock of 82 sheep (bred ewes and open yearling ewes) west of Auburn. One of these dogs is a 10-year-old Anatolian shepherd neutered male; the other is a 2-year-old Anatolian x Maremma intact male. These collars record location every 5 minutes. We've also deployed seven trail cameras on the parameter of the sheep paddock to document wildlife, domestic animal and human activity in the proximity of the sheep. Our hope is that when we compare the time stamp on photos with the GPS locations of the dogs, we'll begin to understand what kinds of interactions the dogs have with predators and non-predators.

The habitat where the sheep are grazing is foothill oak woodland and open grassland. To date, the cameras have detected coyotes, foxes, deer, jackrabbits, skunks, raccoons, owls, and small birds - along with domestic dogs, walking/jogging/cycling humans and horseback riders. We're in the process of going through the GPS data to determine what the dogs were doing when these animals and people showed up in the cameras. Here are a few of the most interesting photos:

  

Learning to be a Lambing Dog

Our oldest dog, Reno, has been an outstanding dog at lambing. He keeps his distance from lambing ewes, is very patient with rambunctious lambs, and keeps afterbirth cleaned up (which can attract scavengers and predators). Since he's ten years old, we decided we need to try 2-year-old Bodie with the lambing ewes this year. We also hoped that Reno would teach him manners and respect - Bodie is still a bit immature behaviorally.

Our first lamb was born on February 22, and I was fortunate to arrive shortly after the birth. As has been typical, Reno was lying about 20 yards away from the ewe and lamb. Bodie met me at the pasture fence well away from them. After I had been there about 10 minutes watching the new lamb, Bodie joined us. I shot video of his interaction with the ewe and with Reno - you can view it at this link:

Training a New Lambing Dog (YouTube)

I suspect that some of Reno's protectiveness has to do with his love for eating afterbirth! That said, in the weeks since this interaction, Reno has enforced Bodie's respect for the sheep even when there isn't afterbirth available. And Bodie seems to have matured. He's more respectful of the sheep, less rambuctious in his behavior, and a better guardian dog in general.

Developing an LGD Puppy

Finally, an update on the Pyrenees x Akbash puppy we picked up in September. Elko is going to be a big dog - he's already as big as Bodie. Since pulling the rams from the flock in November, Elko has been with the rams learning manners. For several months, we kept him with Reno (which also helped on the manners front). Since we moved Reno to the lambing flock, Elko has been on his own. He's still definitely a puppy - we're not expecting him to provide much protection at this point, but he is learning to stay with his sheep.

Several weeks ago, we tried an experiment using a different type of fencing. We have found that most of our dogs will stay in 42-inch electro-net. However, we wanted to try training the sheep (and the dogs) to 3-strand poly-wire fencing. I installed a short stretch of fence at our home place and have watched Elko check it out and decide to stay on the proper side. Success!

Here's a relatively recent photo of Elko:

Stay tuned for more information on these topics! And just a note: last week, Reno became lame on a back leg. Our small animal veterinarian thinks he probably tore his ACL. At the moment, he's recuperating in the barn and watching over a trio of very annoying bottle lambs. Given the seriousness of his injury, he's probably permanently retired. He's been a great dog!