Texas Wildlife April 2010
by
Henry Chappell
If you run livestock – especially sheep or goats - predators will come.
In Texas, “livestock predator” means coyote, feral dog, mountain lion, and bobcat. Shooting and trapping can help in the short term, but you know coyotes: remove one, and another one is all too happy to step in. Remove a dominant male, and you might get two lesser coyotes in his place.
Or you could keep your predators, save your livestock, and gain a few big, fine, shaggy dogs in the bargain.
This isn’t a new idea. A few thousand years ago, shepherds in Central Asia figured out that while a Philistine giant might be felled by a sling and rock, wolves were another matter.
Cat Urbigkit runs about 200 ewes in western Wyoming, near Pinedale, about 200 miles south of Yellowstone National Park. Wolves frequently move through her area, and then there’s the local population of bears – black and grizzly – bobcats and coyotes.
“There are two active coyote dens on the section where my house sits,” she said. “I’m not lambing on that section, so I just leave the dens alone.” But if a coyote wanders close to her sheep, it’ll be met by large, tough, livestock-protection dogs.
Smart coyotes clear out.
“These dogs are viewed as a non-lethal predator control method,” Cat said. “Technically that’s true, although my most effective dogs are often lethal. Coyotes constantly challenge us. Every day, one will try to come into our sheep, and it rarely ends well for the coyote.”
Cat got her start about 15 years ago when she took on some orphan lambs. She’d been running cattle, but her husband works in town, and she found sheep easier to handle alone.
Shortly after she took on the lambs, a fellow sheepherder gave her a livestock-protection puppy – a Great Pyrenees.
Nowadays, in addition to her sheep operation, Cat raises one to three litters of livestock-protection pups per year. She occasionally keeps a pup for her own use, but most go to big-time stockmen who run thousands of sheep on Wyoming’s vast tracts of public land.
It’s difficult for these herders to raise pups because the sheep are always on the move. To get around the problem, Cat teamed with a large operator who runs as many as two-dozen protection dogs at a time. When one of his females is about to have pups, he turns her over to Cat.
“That way, the mama dog can raise her puppies among my sheep until they’re about four months old,” Cat said.
Although, guardian dogs have been used with great success for thousands of years, they’ve only been used extensively in the Unites States for about 35 years. Although Cat started with Great Pyrenees – far and away the most popular livestock guardian in the United States, she soon realized that she needed bigger, more canine-aggressive dogs to deal with wolves. Livestock-protection dogs will fight to the death in defense of their charges, and over the past several years, wolves have killed eight of Cat’s dogs.
She switched to Anatolians and Akbash, two large, powerful Turkish breeds developed by nomadic herdsmen to protect livestock from wolves.
“We really had to stop and think about what we were going to do because when you lose an adult guardian out of your herd, it’s a big loss,” Cat said. “Your sheep and all of your other dogs have grown accustomed to that dog and depend on it, so it’s a really traumatic event.”
She also found a Russian breeder of Ovcharkas, also known as Aziats, a mighty mastiff-type guardian dog native to Central Asia, particularly Afghanistan. Cat’s Ovcharka pup was the smallest in his litter. He got his name – Rant - from the Russian breeder’s pronunciation of “runt.” Rant now weighs about 130 pounds.
In the Ovcharka’s homeland, shepherds gather for dogfights to determine which dogs will be allowed to breed. These brawls are nothing like pit bull fights in the United States. The shepherds aren’t wagering; they’re simply ensuring that their future dogs will possess the physical prowess and canine aggression to successfully take on wolves.
Why not just eliminate wolves with an aggressive, lethal predator-control program?
These traditional shepherds see wolves as necessary to the continued fitness of their dogs and the continuation of their way of life. Guardian dogs must be tested against their fiercest rivals.
(I like this line of reasoning. If we get rid of wolves, we might not need our dogs. Therefore we need wolves.)
The old children’s tales involving wolves and sheep are grounded in reality. Cat considers wolves a far bigger threat than even grizzlies. Faced with two or three large, bristling dogs, most bears will sensibly decide that berries and grubs will suffice for mutton. But wolves are cooperative hunters, and Cat suspects that they see guardian dogs as territorial rivals.
“I would never put a single dog out there,” she said. In wolf country, she recommends four or five guard dogs per 1,000 sheep.
Since wolves often kill with a bite to the neck, Cat and her partners are experimenting with various styles of spiked collars. They’ve found that metal Old World style collars tend to get caught in barbwire, so they’ve designed leather collars with steel spikes. Recently, a local saddle maker produced two prototypes.
“We’re looking for any way to increase survivability,” Cat said.
Although well-bred guardian dogs readily bond with livestock, Cat takes no chances. She beds pups in fleece before their eyes are open.
“They’re associating the most comfortable place in the world with the smell of sheep and the feel of wool,” she said.
Once the pups start opening their eyes, she places them with friendly lambs.
“The lambs are quite affectionate. They go up to the pups and sniff them and want their noses licked. Usually, the lambs will lie down and the pups will cuddle up and sleep with them. When those pups smell that lamb, they get really excited. ‘Here it is again and it’s alive’.”
The pups bond immediately and for life. Although Cat trains the dogs to come to a whistle, and socializes them so they’re friendly toward people, their true loyalty is toward their charges.
“They’re thrilled to see us twice a day for a few minutes, but they’re right back with their sheep,” Cat said. “We’ve never worried about making the dogs too social. We get them bonded so strong when they’re young that they really do prefer their sheep over us.”
Cat stresses that because of the wolf and coyote threats, she needs dogs that are canine-aggressive, but not generally aggressive toward humans. In Central Asia, fearsome Ovcharkas sometimes serve as village guard dogs and are trusted around children.
Yet, despite the herding community’s efforts to properly socialize guardian dogs and educate the public, there remains a potential for human-dog conflicts, especially on public land. In 2009, in Colorado, guardian dogs mauled a mountain biker when she rode through their sheep herd. The cyclist survived, but with severe injuries. The dogs had to be put down.
“Most guardians aren’t aggressive toward people,” Cat said. “But someone coming in fast, hunkered down over a bike … I guess they mistook her for a threat.”
To reduce the risk of potentially deadly mistakes, Cat and her neighbors condition their dogs to ignore harmless human activity by having teenagers ride dirt bikes, mountain bikes, and four-wheelers around guardian dogs and their sheep.
Just how effective are livestock guardians? Producers who use Cat’s dogs always report a decrease in losses – often as much as 80 percent.
Our predators here in Texas may not be as formidable as those in Wyoming, but they’re plenty adept at killing livestock.
Bill and Sue Balthrope keep a goatherd on their ranch near Boerne. Five years ago, they were losing more than 70 percent of their kids to predators – primarily coyotes and outlaw dogs. Desperate, Sue contacted Diana Preiss of Little Blessings Ranch, in Comal County. Dianna raises Great Pyrenees dogs and Spanish and Boer goats.
Sue nearly bought a pup but backed out at the last minute. “I just decided that we weren’t set up for dogs and frankly we didn’t need anything else to take care of.” She also worried that she wouldn’t be able to keep her hands off a cuddlesome pup long enough to let it properly bond with the goats.
A few months later, the ranch foreman called to report an unusually gruesome attack. Shortly thereafter, Diana Preiss delivered a pair of half-grown Great Pyrenees pups, Scout and Trapper, to the Balthrope’s ranch.
The goats, long traumatized by canine predators, bunched and trembled at one end of the pen. The pups, having been around goats from the beginning, strode into the pen with no hesitation. While Scout snuffled around to get acquainted with his new digs, Trapper immediately sat down and stared at the goats.
“He was already protecting those goats,” Sue said. Scout was a little younger, and Diana assured us he’d catch on. Sure enough, he did.”
The dogs and their goats spent a few months in successively larger traps before being turned out to range freely about the ranch. Scout and Trapper are five years old now. Under their protection, the herd hasn’t lost a single goat to predators.
Diana Preiss stresses that although Great Pyrenees make excellent family companions, owners have to choose between a herd guardian and a pet. The guardian dog’s primary bond must be with its livestock.
Because adult goats can be rough, Diana recommends waiting until pups are three months-old before placing them with a herd. Even then, she and her husband build lean-to shelters in the pens so the pups can get away from aggressive goats.
At the same time, she doesn’t allow adolescent dogs to play rough with kids.
“There’s a lot of discipline that goes into managing dogs during their teenage phase,” Diana said. “We give them milk jugs to play with, and I’ll really get after a dog that’s playing too rough with kids.”
Although Diana trains her dogs to come when called so they can be doctored and treated for fleas and ticks, she recommends a hands-off approach otherwise. No grooming or bathing. Despite their lush coats, Great Pyrenees do just fine in the Texas heat, given shade and ready access to water.
As for choice of breed, Diana prefers Great Pyrenees because they tend to be less aggressive than Central Asian dogs bred to take on wolves – a trait that gives her peace of mind when her grandchildren visit.
Nevertheless, her dogs will fight if necessary. A stockman from the Comfort, Texas, area who purchased guardian dogs from Diana reported that he found one of his females covered in blood. He assumed that she’d killed a goat and decided to put her down. Upon closer inspection, he found tooth marks. His veterinarian verified that the dog had fought off at least two coyotes. His second dog had stayed with the herd to prevent a rearguard attack.
Regardless of breed, pups should come from working lines. “If you go to look at pups and the adult dogs are hanging around the house, that’s not a good sign,” Diana said. “And those pups shouldn’t be all brushed up and clean. They should smell like a goat pen.”
Unlike other types of working dogs, livestock guardians spend most of their lives away from people. But that separation doesn’t diminish their human partners’ affection and appreciation.
Cat Urbigkit sums up the partnership perfectly: “If we didn’t have these dogs, I wouldn’t be in the sheep business. It’s as simple as that.”
(Sidebar)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Cat Urbigkit has authored several award-winning children’s books about sheep herding and livestock-protection dogs – www.paradisesheep.com. She also blogs on herding and livestock-protection dogs at Stephen Bodio’s Querencia - www.stephenbodio.blogspot.com.
Diana Preiss/Little Blessings Ranch - www.goatsandguardians.com/home.html
Books
Livestock Guardians: Using Dogs, Donkeys, and Llamas to Protect Your Herd by Janet Vorwald Dohner
Livestock Protection Dogs: Selection, Care, and Training by Orysia Dawydiak and David E. Simms
Other Resources
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wildlife Damage Management - www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/nwrc/research/predator_management/guard_dogs.shtml
United Kennel Club - www.ukcdogs.com