Livestock Guardian Dogs

Our Livestock guardian dogs are so important to us on the farm. They watch over the sheep more than we do! Right now we have 9 guard dogs - Hoss, Belle, Pistol, Lola, Willow, Franklin, Bailey, Leah, and Sasha.

It can get expensive to feed all those dogs so we try to supplement their feed with raw meat that we can get for cheap or free. They get Purina dog food in the mornings and will usually get a raw meat snack in the afternoon. I think their favorite treat is liver or heart!

In the fall we try to take advantage of hunters that are not wanting to keep the meat. We also have taken meat from older cows that died and would not make the best food for humans.

We think it is important to vet our guard dogs. Who knows what they might get into out in the pastures so we make sure they are up to date on their shots every year. Most of the time the vet will come out to the farm and ride around with Harry to find all the dogs for their rabies shots.
We also find it important to spay and neuter our guard dogs. With them roaming at times, we want to keep them from breeding when we don’t want them to.

Some people find it better to have less interaction with your guard dogs, we are the opposite! We think they need a good mix of human interaction while still knowing that out with the sheep is where they belong. We want to be able to call the guard dogs to us and pet them but we don’t want them to follow us out of the pastures.

These dogs are the best and are so smart. It is impossible to say what all they know about our sheep that we don’t. Sometimes we find ourselves getting frustrated when the dogs move pastures without us moving them but we have to remember that they go to the trouble. If they moved, it was because they had a reason to.

Special shout out to all our past dogs. Some passed away and others we found different farm homes for.
[Gracie - Zero - Copper - Javi - Stormy - Lady - Isla]