ASI proposal threatens livestock guardian dogs

Livestock guardian... er, protection dogs protect sheep from coyotes, wolves, bears, eagles, domestic dogs and thieving humans. This is good. But federal lands are public lands, and on federal grazing allotments conflicts may arise between flock guardians and someone who, for example, happens to be riding her mountain bike through the flock after dark, screaming hysterically.

In that sad case a woman was mauled and the flock owner, whose LGDs were confined during the day of the mountain bike race and released at sundown, was convicted of owning vicious dogs. His guardian dogs were killed. [Read the ongoing discussion on the Sheep Production Forum.]

At the American Sheep Industry Association's Annual Convention in Nashville last month, the ASI working group on Livestock Protection Dogs was feeling the heat:

ASI strongly believes that the use of LPDs on federal grazing allotments is in serious jeopardy, and anticipates three possible outcomes: 1) Federal agencies develop their own mandatory regulations for the use of LPDs on grazing allotments; 2) Federal agencies completely eliminate the use of LPDs on grazing allotments; or 3) ASI takes a proactive management position and adopts a stringent LPD certification program that sets high industry standards for the use of LPDs with the intent to effectively manage and maintain the use of LPDs on federal grazing allotments.

That quote was taken from a five-page document the ASI is calling its draft management program for livestock guardian dogs. A certification program is recommended, and there are guidelines for everything from socialization and training to coat care and mandatory neuter. [I suffered AB 1634 flashbacks.]

Sheep Production Forum owner Bill Fosher doesn't like the proposal either, and he's a sheep producer and guardian dog owner. He writes:

While I can understand and appreciate that the ASI is trying to take a pro-active stand, I believe that its proposal will do more harm than good. You can read it for yourself here. ASI is seeking input, and I believe that every sheep producer who uses livestock guardian dogs should read the document carefully and comment extensively.

Go to the Edgefield Sheep blog to read Guard dogs under threat, Bill's excellent commentary on the ASI proposal. And if you raise sheep and rely on livestock guardian dogs, please send your comments on the proposal to the ASI.


[In the photo: woman meets livestock guardian near Cabrales, in northern Spain. She's a dog person, but this working mastiff growled at her husband, who kept his distance (and used a zoom lens while she examined the spiked collar). The blog post he wrote about the encounter and about the return of flock guardians to the Spanish countryside is called La Torna del Cancerbero (The Return of Cerberus).]

Must have

Seriously. Check out the shepherd huts at Plankbridge in Dorset.

I'm in love.

"Alpine murder mystery: Are sheepdogs being poisoned to save the grey wolf?"

Transhumance festival in the foothills of the French Alps.

As Capt. Obvious would say, people have strong feelings about wolves. Ranchers despair over livestock and pets lost. Environmentalists, who are sometimes ranchers as well, want some protection for large predators. Politicians want news coverage; hunters want wolfskins; animal rightists want attention, etc.

Livestock guardian dogs are familiar to anyone who raises sheep in North America, and in Europe shepherds have turned to flock guardians as well ["returned" might be a better word, since many livestock guardian breeds were developed in Europe]. Now, in a strange twist, dogs guarding flocks on the border between France and Italy are being killed — not by wolves, but by human predators.

The French have an expression – entre chiens et loups– between the dogs and the wolves. It is a fanciful way of describing the twilight, the mysterious and uncertain time between day and night.

In the beautiful summer pastures of the Maurienne region of the French Alps, something mysterious, and wicked, has been happening in the twilight hours. The events are uncertain but one thing is clear. This is, literally, a story about dogs and wolves.

Since the start of the year, 17 sheepdogs have been poisoned in the mountains of the Maurienne range, which rise to more than 9,000ft, just inside the French frontier with Italy. The dogs have often died in great agony. They include several of the Patou or Pyrenean mountain breed – enormous, white, misleadingly cuddly-looking dogs, which are trained to give their lives, if necessary, to defend sheep from wolves.

In related news [huge suckage, this], some of the livestock guradian dogs are attacking tourists, and shepherds are being sued in the wake of ruined holidays:

Jean-Luc Renaud was on a mountain-walking holiday when he saw a bloodstained Belgian tourist staggering towards him. “His shorts were torn and he had been bitten badly in both buttocks,” Mr Renaud told The Times. “He was in a state of complete shock.”

The Belgian had fallen victim to a notoriously ferocious breed of mountain dog brought into the French Alps to defend sheep from wolves.

The attacks are driving holidaymakers away and are splitting the community against a backdrop of controversy over the reintroduction of the wolf in France. To add to the row, shepherds have been taken to court by wounded holidaymakers and 17 dogs have been poisoned in the Maurienne region of the Alps.

Read the full account [with comments] here.

Wolves, coyotes and LGDs

Wolf concept .02 by Chris Do and the BL:ND team for Gap.

The wolf is a compelling, complicated presence in human history and evolution. He's more controversial these days than ever: some people pay to hear wolf packs howl on winter nights in Wyoming, while not that many miles away other people grit their teeth and curse when wolves kill sheep or a favorite dog.

The wolf's little cousin, the coyote, is one of my favorite creatures on earth. I was alone on a snowy trail in Yosemite once when three coyotes, big ones in thick winter coats, loped into a meadow maybe forty yards away, pointed their muzzles at the gray sky and whooped and shrieked like the devil incarnate. It was beautiful. Those three sounded like a dozen, loud and wild.

I love to hear coyotes sing when I know my animals are safe. The Daily Coyote melts my heart. But the suburban coyote that trots out of the Verdugo Hills and tries to carry off a toddler? Out of the C. latrans gene pool, you. The sheep-killing coyote? Toast. [Not that traps and bullets make a real dent in the coyote population: the irony here, I'm convinced, is that we're making the species stronger and smarter by killing the inept ones.]


Livestock guardian dogs, relatively new to North America, are old hands at protecting flocks of sheep from predation and other hazards:

"Kodiak, a livestock guard dog, stays with what's left of the flock of sheep he had protected from a barn fire near Carnation on Thursday. Kodiak's fur was singed while he stayed between the fire and the sheep, later running to a pond and sitting in mud." [Kodiak, a Great Pyrenees, belongs to Diane Pagel. Photo by Steve Ringman for the Seattle Times.]

Cat Urbigkit, Wyoming sheep rancher and author, has shared notes and photos of her LGDs with Stephen Bodio of Querencia: see the posts Flock Protectors and Coursing with Sheepdogs. I know zip about LGDs so can't comment on breed preferences in the U.S., but I've noticed that many flock owners prefer crossbreds. I think Maremmas are beautiful: you can read about Julie Poudrier's new Maremma — a rescue — here.

Meanwhile, to the northeast: is it a wolf? Is it a coyote? It's thriving, whatever it is, according to the NY Times:

Amid much fanfare this year, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service declared the western Great Lakes gray wolf successfully recovered from an encounter with extinction and officially removed it from the endangered species list. Under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, the wolf boomed in population to 4,000 in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin today, up from just several hundred in northern Minnesota in 1974.

But the victory celebration was premature, according to two evolutionary biologists, Jennifer A. Leonard of Uppsala University in Sweden and Robert K. Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles. The historic Great Lakes wolf did not return intact from the edge of oblivion. Instead, the scientists report in the online edition of the journal Biology Letters, it hybridized with gray wolves moving in from Canada, coyotes from the south and west and the hybrids born of that mixing.

Janet McNally of Minnesota writes that she needs six to eight LGDs at the minimum to keep her sheep safe from all that hybrid vigor. Click on Guardians at this link to read more about her crossbred LGDs.

Shepherd Bill Fosher notes the recent appearance of a wild wolf in Massachusetts, and suspects there will soon be "a movement to reintroduce this top-level predator into its former range in New England":

There's historical evidence that my part of New Hampshire was, in fact, home to wolves. So if there's going to be reintroduction, it will probably happen around me. I hope that the wildlife biologists have the common sense to work with livestock producers before the killing starts. The can have us working with them, or they can have us working against them. It's as simple as that, and it's entirely up to them.

For more information on wolves, see the following sites:

Dr. L. David Mech's International Wolf Center.

Cat Urbigkit's Wolf Watch.

For more on the coyote, see this detailed Wikipedia article, and check out the book by J. Frank Dobie, Voice of the Coyote. It's an old fave.

Sheep serif

Even the i is dotted. Well done, ladies.

North Devon shepherd/author/filmmaker/television personality David Kennard can add "performance artist" to his resume with this gem.

Sheepdogs are trained to obey their master's every word. So when farmer David Kennard decided one of those words would be "Spring", his dogs did not hesitate.

They rounded up the flock on the hills of Mr Kennard's north Devon farm and, with a little help from their master, created a picture that reminds us that, whatever the weather, this is officially the first weekend of Spring.

The scene did call for a careful scattering of feed to make the sheep form themselves in the shapes of the six letters.

However, it was down to the team of Collies – who everyone knows border on the brilliant – to have the last word. They circled the 200-strong flock and kept them from wandering off-message.

Thanks to Carol of Frogdog Blog for the tip — visit her most excellent blog to read more about Kennard and his border collies.

And also, oh look! A book about sheepherding, by someone who is… an actual sheepherder! Someone send a note to Jon Katz about this.

Snerk.

Kennard [below with Ernie, Swift and Greg] knows how to pen compelling accounts of farm life, and it doesn't hurt that he shepherds in breathtaking country:


A Shepherd's Watch has excellent photos to supplement Kennard's writing, and The Year of the Working Sheepdog is a classic video: read a review here.

Kennard knows a thing or two about sheepdogs. He had a respectable showing with Swift and Greg in brace competition at the 1999 International Trial. From A Shepherd's Watch:

Greg was obviously aware that this was a brace run, and on arriving at the sheep had lain down and waited for a minute or so for his partner to arrive without a command from me. When Swift appeared, he simply got to his feet and moved across to his side of the sheep. I don't know how many people noticed his reaction, but it was something that I'll never forget.

The sheep in the photo at the top of this post are Kennard's North Country Mules. To learn more about mule sheep, see Dr. Mark Lelli's excellent Muleflock website.

Library of Congress photosets on Flickr

Bands of sheep on the Gravelly Range at the foot of Black Butte, Madison County, Montana. [Link]. Click on photos for a larger view.

Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range, Madison County, Montana. [Link].

Photographs taken in August of 1942, by Russell Lee. The Library of Congress' Photos.

Happy Birthday, Molly

Bill Fosher on the dog that changed his life:

Old Molly just keeps on keeping on. She turns 105 today, if you buy the notion that one calendar year is seven dog years.

Just a few weeks ago, I thought she might not make it to this milestone. She suffered a major seizure, and had a hard time coming out of it. But come out of it she did, and bless her heart, she paces up and down "harr-ing" for her dinner every night starting about two hours before feeding time.

Bill is the owner/moderator of the invaluable Sheep Production Forums. He doesn't write much, but when he does, it's good: for my money, he's one of the best writers on dogs, and ought to write a book about shepherding. You can read On the occasion of Molly's 15th birthday at Bill's Edgefield Sheep blog.


Companion dogs are wonderful. My pit bulls are fantastic dogs, and I've loved all of them at least as much as I love my collies. But the bond with a working stock dog is different, and very special. Stock work is like a crucible. Treats, praise, comfort and predictable conditions are burned away, and what's left is the essence of a centuries-old working partnership: instinct, resolve, communion. I'm not saying you have to have been out there counting on your dog in the middle of the night with fences down and the rain blowing sideways to understand what I'm talking about --- but you have to have tended stock with a good dog to know.

Happy Birthday, Molly!

Fear not, shepherds!

UPDATE: Edited for spelling. Content unchanged.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

The passage above is the familiar one from the King James Bible. For comparison, here is the first text in English of the second chapter of Luke. The author was William Tyndale, may his name be a blessing. His translation was completed in 1525:

And it chaunced in thoose dayes: yt ther went oute a comaundment from Auguste the Emperour that all the woorlde shuld be taxed.
2 And this taxynge was ye fyrst and executed when Syrenius was leftenaut in Syria.
3 And every man went vnto his awne citie to be taxed.
4 And Ioseph also ascended from Galile oute of a cite called Nazareth into Iurie: vnto ye cite of David which is called Bethleem because he was of the housse and linage of David
5 to be taxed with Mary his spoused wyfe which was with chylde.
6 And it fortuned whyll they were there her tyme was come that she shuld be delyvered.
7 And she brought forth her fyrst begotten sonne and wrapped him in swadlynge cloothes and layed him in a manger because ther was no roume for them within in the ynne.
8 And ther were in the same region shepherdes abydinge in the felde and watching their flocke by nyght.
9 And loo: the angell of ye lorde stode harde by the and the brightnes of ye lorde shone rounde aboute them and they were soare afrayed.
10 But the angell sayd vnto them: Be not afrayed. For beholde I bringe you tydinges of greate ioye yt shal come to all ye people:
11 for vnto you is borne this daye in the cite of David a saveoure which is Christ ye lorde.
12 And take this for a signe: ye hall fynde ye chylde swadled and layed in a mager.
13 And streight waye ther was with the angell a multitude of hevenly sowdiers laudynge God and sayinge:
14 Glory to God an hye and peace on the erth: and vnto men reioysynge.
15 And it fortuned assone as the angels were gone awaye fro them in to heven the shepherdes sayd one to another: let vs goo eve vnto Bethleem and se this thynge that is hapened which the Lorde hath shewed vnto vs.
16 And they cam with haste and founde Mary and Ioseph and the babe layde in a mager.
17 And when they had sene it they publisshed a brode the sayinge which was tolde them of that chylde.
18 And all that hearde it wondred at those thinges which were tolde the of the shepherdes.
19 But Mary kept all thoose sayinges and pondered them in hyr hert.

And because I've loved it for decades, here is the shape-note hymn Sherburne. Listen to the great [Real Player] version here: click on April 17, 2002 RealAudio. The song begins at 3 hrs 28 min, and yes, you can fast forward ;~)

While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.

All glory be to God on high
And to the earth be peace,
Goodwill henceforth from heaven to men
Begin and never cease.

And to the earth be peace.