December 7, 2008

Another Stray Dog

One of the Great Pyrenees is in heat. When she was a pup we had decided not to have her spade and to breed her to a friend’s male registered GP. This was before the Demodectic mange appeared. We highly regret the decision at this time. For now she is confined to the dog run. Her being behind bars does not seem to stop any intact male dog within 40 miles from showing up on the farm.
A strange very large black dog showed up 4 days ago. I managed to keep him at bay by using my mean voice and bellowing "get out of here" any time he came within hearing range. This worked during day light hours, though under the cover of night who knows where the intruder went or what he would do.
Friday I had enough of the worry that he was not only a stray, possibly a mean stray and would do harm to our goats or birds. I started calling all near and far neighbors I knew, I ask them to call their near and far neighbors in attempt to find this black dogs owners. Yesterday morning the owner came to collect the black beast. He probably was a really nice dog, but not my really nice dog and he needed to go!
We have 4 livestock guardian dogs, with Hannah in the dog run that leaves 3 dogs to patrol our 15 acres. Would you believe that not one of the 3 would chase the black dog off unless I yelled get out of here?
They normally do their jobs well. They will bark at, chase down and protect the farm from even the tiniest squirrel. Strange cats are treed and should really fear for their lives. They keep the fox, raccoon, opossum, deer and the closest neighbors dogs away. Their nights are spent howling at coyote, barking at the sound of distant traveling vehicles, anything that goes bump in the night sets off a chain reaction in the valley…our dogs bark, the neighbor’s dogs bark, the wind carries the sound up over the hills, those dogs bark, and so on. They dislike and have nipped at the electric meter reader; they have even chased and refused to move from in front of vehicles transporting goats we have sold from the farm.
So what gives with the black dog I wonder? I told them they were treading on thin ice. If they weren’t careful I would fire each and every one of them if they allowed the black dog back on the farm.
Oh...and I also called the vet, Hannah will have her social responsibilities removed in two weeks.

5 comments:

Joanna@BooneDocksWilcox said...

JK, this is changing the subject but wanted to ask you a goat question.

I started out with three does because I wanted the milk, now it seems I had to buy the bucks to breed my girls to keep the milk flowing.

I'll be getting the registration papers for the buck's I bought yesterday. I bought the does without the papers because I didn't want to breed and w/ theo papers would save me money.

Are your goats registered? As it turns out I have ended up with really good stock because I bought 'em all late in the year. Their petigree's are strong BUT I JUST WANTED THE MILK, I didn't want to invest all this money and have to become a breeder. Now I'd owe the doe breeder another $500 so I can get their papers.

I dearly love all the goats around. My new boys are very gentle.

Mike and I have no desire to join the goat show circuit. I like being at home, I don't like running the roads.

Have you got any insight for me? or can you blog about your experience in this area? Thx

Phill said...

Oh, I just love Gret Pyrs. They are awesome dogs. What awesome little mentions of their exploits here in this post ... I'd love to hear some stories.

Anonymous said...

I am glad we got ours fixed since we live on a Dangerous Intersection, one time our adult Pyrenees that we had went out on the road as a delivery was coming up our road and the guy told us there was a great big white dog running up our lane and my Dad ran out and got her back thankfully though.

DayPhoto said...

They must have known him ...?

Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/

Jennifer said...

Glad you found the owner to the stray dog! You know how I feel about people letting their dogs run loose!