Farm Fresh Blog

It's so cute when the lambs discover the Livestock Guardian Dogs. Most of the time they are too shy to give the dogs a full inspection but today a couple of ewes caught Briar sunbathing after a muddy dip in the pond and couldn't resist stealing a closer look.

They finally spooked themselves and ran off. Briar watched them go,

then she rolled over and looked at me as if to say,

"Was it something I said?"

This dog still cracks me up.

It has come to my attention (because people keep writing me for advice) that for some reason blog readers believe I'm an expertin the following subjects:

Investigating murders
Training Livestock Guardian Dogs
Training Border Collies to herd

First off, don't send me your unsolved murder investigations. You don't have the complete report and I can't give an opinion on the crime scene without the crime scene report. And Lordy no, don't try to email me all the crime scene photos. It bogs down my computer and I'm gonna tell you the same thing - if you believe the local police did a poor job, then contact the state police and have them look at the case. I cannot investigate your murder case. I don't have enough information, and it takes an incredibly long time to look at what you send me and then say, "I don't have enough information."  Yes, if you are a lawyer and do have access to the whole case file, then your situations are different.

Now, onto Livestock Guardian Dogs. I can only give you my experiences. My set-up is probably completely different from yours. We LIVE IN THE BARN. All that stuff you're hearing about keeping the LGDs from hanging around the house doesn't apply to us because the SHEEP are hanging around the back door too. I must measure successful LGDs not in the number of predators killed but in the number of livestock animals still alive when I lock up at night and when the sun rises in the morning. If the count is still the same, the LGD gets a gold star for the day. I can't tell you how to keep your LGD from roaming. Mine roam too. To varying degrees, all Livestock Guardian Dog breeds do it. The best I can tell you is to reinforce your fences, use hotwire where you can, and use a yoke when you can. Dragging a tire didn't work for me because I began to worry too much about hanging my dog.

And lastly, training Border Collies. I get a lot of questions about this subject. For some reason people think I know how to train herding dogs. That's a laugh. It's like one of those logic problems in school. My dogs herd, I am a dog trainer, therefore I must be a herding dog trainer.

Wrong. I am as baffled by all the diagram instructions in the herding dog books as you are, so assume nothing.  My Border Collies work because I get dogs that are genetically stacked in that direction, and we do chores together. Lots and lots of chores. In the hands of a skilled herding dog trainer my dogs would be much better trained. I wish, seriously, I WISH I had the time and money to pay someone for regular lessons, but I don't. All I have is an empty bank account, a handful of dogs that are bred to work and a lot of work to do. That is the key, and the reason why my dogs 'appear' to be trained. They are not, folks. We have a good relationship and communicate pretty well, thus I'm able to roughly communicate my goals and reward the dog when it chooses the right behavior. Most of our success comes from living closely with the dog and the sheep.

I gave this some thought yesterday as I reached for Wyatt to help Mesa get the rams into their day pen. We work a lot on routines. The rams are loose in the pasture and barnyard at night. Each morning the dogs must put the rams into their day run behind the barn so the ewes and lambs can be released. The dogs know this game. The sheep know this game. Most of the time the sheep cooperate. Yesterday the rams simply weren't having it. They kept bypassing the gate and fast-walking around and around the barn. Mesa worked and worked but each time she got the little bastards close to the gate they would shoot forward to start the whole process again. Wyatt isn't ready for that kind of complicated problem on his own. He is at the 'we go out and basically escort the rams to the pen as they willingly comply' stage. He and I pretend it's herding, but it's not. It's following willing sheep. But here's the trick - he's done it enough to know that the rams SHOULD go into that pen, so when in my rage yesterday, when I opened the gate to let him come out and help Mesa, he already knew the problem. He'd been in a kennel watching the damned rams circle the barn four times already. With two Border Collies, the game changed considerably. Wyatt bowled in too fast but it had the effect we needed. There was no polish, but he was all the places that Mesa wasn't and the rams couldn't politely shuffle away. Wyatt and Mesa worked as a team and 30 seconds later the rams were penned. With the job completed, Wyatt ran from the gate and leaped at me for his big congratulations. Unlike Mesa who is embarrassed by praise, Wyatt is quite needy and likes to receive an Academy Award. The sheep were penned. He earned it. The ship was righted and our day could continue back on schedule.

That is how I train, folks. It's not pretty. It's based on relationship and routine. I cannot take ANY of my dogs onto a field and be successful in a herding dog trial, so I am not the person you need to ask for training advice. Find someone like the Sheep Goddess who actually trains and TRIALS Border Collies. My dogs simply have the advantage of working on a ranch. If we flub something up we don't have to wait until the lesson next week to try it again. And I don't have all week to obsess on my dog's brain-fart, or my own poor timing during the last lesson. Chances are good that the next lesson is merely the next time I step out the back door. My dogs can easily picture the chore because they understand the routine. When the routine changes I have just enough rudimentary commands (based on experience learned through routines!) that we muddle forward and create new routines. The dogs soon learn that it's all a matter of moving sheep or holding sheep.

I had to take this same approach to learning to use the sheepdog whistle. Not to blow it, I knew how to blow it. I needed to start putting verbal commands to a whistle because often Mesa has to work at a distance and the wind can get quite loud and blustery up here. It seemed that whenever I needed the whistle it was in the house, so I started wearing it around my neck. That didn't work because the lanyard allowed it to hang and fall forward into crap as I was doing chores. Not only is that not safe, it's not sanitary. So I put it the whistle on a heavy necklace chain and started wearing that sucker under my shirt as a necklace. (which is also not sanitary but not as bad as your whistle dangling in chicken shit.) Now that I had it with me all the time, any time Mesa started some little chore I began tooting my whistle commands. At first it was distracting to both of us but we soon developed actual tweets that made sense to the dog because I had paired them often enough with simple chores. I really love my whistle (Logan brand) and keep it handy under my shirt. Yes, it's dorky, but not really. Like the Border Collie, it's always there and that's the only way we learn anything around here.

For the most part we have to teach ourselves. The downside is that it takes a while and we learn bad habits. The upside is that no one is judging us but us. If the job gets done then we're winners. But make no mistake, that kind of lopsided training does not make me an expert in training Border Collies. If you live on a sheep ranch and have no regular access to a professional herding dog trainer, my best advice is to take that dog with you everywhere. They are little sponges. A dog doesn't learn much sitting in a kennel, but he learns an awful lot sitting in the pickup. And he's handy. When they're handy, you reach for them more often. When they learn what normal is, the good ones try to help. Reinforce their efforts. Needy ones like Wyatt want an Academy Award, but even the Mesa dogs in this world still want an "atta girl" even though they appear to blush and ignore it.

In conclusion, I'm not an expert in anything except making my own coffee in the morning. My advice regarding LGDs and Border Collies is simple. A dog is just a dog. When you start heaping too many expectations on the dog, you set both yourself and the dog up for failure. If you can find a good herding dog trainer, get the lessons. If you can't, then take your dog everywhere with you and don't expect too much too soon. And most of all, don't trash the dog.
 

Yesterday I turned the lambs out in the lower pasture. For a short time Bramble, the Livestock Guardian Dog puppy, got to join the flock. Since lambing started I've been keeping the pup separated from the ewes. Navajo Churro ewes are fiercely protective of their lambs and even a full grown Livestock Guardian Dog learns to steer clear of new lambs.

The lambs spent some time stalking Briar which apparently creeped her out.

Because I didn't want Bramble to have a bad experience, I've kept her away from the lambs until yesterday.  She was tickled beyond all measure when she was allowed to accompany the flock to pasture.

She also exhibited the kind of behavior I want to see from a Livestock Guardian Dog. Bramble was curious about the lambs and wanted to sneak a sniff.

Her approach attracted the ewe's attention.

The ewe moved to stand over her lamb.

Bramble took a moment to digest this, then she turned her head in submission and quietly walked away.

And that's how it should be. A good Livestock Guardian Dog should be able to walk through the flock like a light breeze passing through a garden. Except for a sway here and there, nothing should stir. No one gets excited. Life moves on.

When I could no longer watch her, I brought Bramble back to the barnyard where she found a horse hoof trimming and settled down to chew it.  Her trips out with the flock will get longer and longer. It's time to get a bell for her collar so I can keep track of her. She's sprouted legs and an independent nature now.  We are moving from the period of puppy confinement with livestock to actual training with the flock.  Because she is still young and I don't want her running into the woods after predators with the big dogs, she will still spend the next year under constant supervision. The time spent teaching Bramble her job now will pay off in the years to come. Training a Livestock Guardian Dog is time-consuming, but it's time well spent.

It is done.

Nineteen. Nineteen Navajo Churro lambs safely delivered. This does not sound like many sheep to the commercial sheep rancher, but these are rare sheep and my first year lambing this breed, so I'm happy with that number. It has been a whirlwind month of new arrivals. There were more twins than I expected. A couple of "Who's ya daddy?" lambs that surprised me. There were more ewe lambs than I can possibly keep even though I want to keep them all. There were more ram lamb candidates than I expected. I had only planned to keep one or two ram lambs, now I'm afraid to band (castrate) many of them lest they later develop into something I want to keep as a breeding ram. I have favorites but I want to see how their fleeces develop.

We lost one I didn't expect.

The only white lamb in the crop. A perfect little ewe lamb. She was apparently rammed by another ewe. Whether it was intentional or whether she was collateral damage in a scuffle between ewes, the result was the same. The baby had a traumatic head injury. We nursed her for several days but when she showed no significant improvement we made the decision to put her down. And as we made that decision, another lamb was born. The last lamb of the season.

Now begins the season of babysitting lambs in the barnyard until they are big enough and fast enough to keep up with the flock in the big pasture. The ewes are impatient. They want to move to the better grass. Hay is boring. I watch the vultures spiral in a lazy circle above the flock. Nope. The lambs are still too small. Not ready for prime time. The pasture is too large. Too wooded. Too much brush. It's too easy for a predator to snatch and run before a Livestock Guardian Dog can get there. So for the time being, lambs will cavort in the barnyard while the mothers gaze longingly through the fence.

And I can finally get some sleep.

What is a shelfie?

In this age of social media, those of us who have only managed to master Facebook are dinosaurs. (If I'm a dinosaur, may I be a velociraptor, please?) I am now struggling to learn Twitter and Instagram, so bear with me. Help me, please! You can find me on Twitter at @rowe_langford and on Instagram at sheridanrowelangford. I'm still trying to figure out the whole hashtag thing ( #farmfreshforensics #sheridanrowelangford ) and need all the advice I can get. Some well-meaning friends are trying to explain the hashtag thing but I feel like a caveman banging rocks together to create fire. I'll get there, but it'll take me a while.

Now, moving forward toward shelfies. I'm not a big selfie person, mostly because if I hold a camera that close to my face I am appalled by the old woman looking back at me in the photograph. If you also add the fact that it's almost impossible to get a picture of me without an animal, and trying to juggle a dog and a camera at close range is difficult, getting a selfie of me is out of the question. I am intrigued by this new idea of a "shelfie" though. It's just a picture of books. Books on your bookshelf, books with nature, books with animals, all these can qualify as a shelfie.

Here are some wonderful examples of shelfies that readers have already sent me.

The cat was sent in by a reader who said that Maggie the Cat was auditioning for the role of a corpse in case Farm Fresh Forensics was ever made into a movie. I laughed so hard that I almost peed my pants. Maggie nailed it.

So why send out a shelfie on social media?

Aside from the fact that it's fun, it's also a way to garner attention for the book from people who have never heard of the Farm Fresh Forensics blog, much less the book.  (I need the money. I have a mortgage and a staggering hay bill, People! LOL)  And I'm getting all this cool book-related SWAG that I want to give away. The bookmark samples came in this week. I loved them. The front side has Briar's eyes. The back side has the book cover design and a blank spot for an autograph.

Anyone who puts a shelfie on social media can hashtag me at #farmfreshforensics or #sheridanrowelangford, or just put it on Facebook or email it to me, and I'll send you a bookmark. (Privately send me the address where you want the bookmark shipped. Don't put your address out there on social media!) Then I'll put your name in the hat for a drawing. For the next few months I'll be holding drawings for coffee mugs and a couple of canvas tote bags. The sample mugs haven't come in yet but when they do I'll post a picture to show you. I'm most excited about those mugs! One is Briar's eyes and the other design is the book cover with the slogan, "Try to see fewer flies!" (If you don't get it yet, read the book and it'll make sense.)

The Farm Fresh Forensics book was released this week and your support humbles me to the core. I have been moved to tears so many times this week by the outpouring of love sent by you, my dear readers who follow this blog. Some of you have been with us since the beginning and now you're part of the family. Some of you just joined recently and you've already become family. This first book is for you. It is for all of you who wrote to tell me how much a blog post gave you a much-needed laugh in the middle of a bad time. It is for the people who have written to say, "I'm going through a rough patch in life right now, can you tell me a funny story tomorrow?" This book is for all the first responders who have written to tell me how much they needed to hear that someone shares their gut-wrenching experiences and that if they just keep trudging forward, they will laugh again.

I wrote this book for all you readers who are also farmers and ranchers. You write to express how much you appreciate the fact that someone else shares your same experiences. We are not wallowing in blood and mud alone! We have each other. We share the same struggles, the same triumphs, the same laughs. We are the same tribe.

This book is also for all you who have written to say that you want to live on a farm but can't, so you enjoy mine. It is for all the fans of Lily, Ranger, Trace, Cowboy and Briar, people who follow the stories of simple ranch dogs. I am still flabberghasted that Briar has fans as far away as Australia and South Africa.

Your support both humbles and terrifies me. Within two days Farm Fresh Forensics was the #1 New Release in its category on Amazon. Truthfully, who knows how many books were actually released in the category recently? I'm sure Amazon markets to its advantage, but nevertheless, the sales are climbing and it's all because of you. You, my dear tribe of readers, humble me. And I'm terrified. I hope this is the book you've wanted. It does pull in some of the best blogs but is so much more. The Farm Fresh Forensics book gives you the backstory and ties things together. Because life doesn't have a beginning and an end, but a book does, I began the book at the start of my CSI career and the beginning of the farm. The book ends when we made the final move to the ranch in north Texas. The dogs are a big part of the Farm Fresh Forensics book. They became such a focus that I realized they needed their own book. Butterflies On A Turd, sequel to Farm Fresh Forensics, will also highlight ranch life, but will focus more on the dogs and their jobs here in north Texas.

The promotional materials for Farm Fresh Forensics should arrive in the mail tomorrow - bookmarks, bookplates, coffee mugs, and at least one canvas tote bag. As soon as they arrive I'll be able to start sending out your swag! If you take a "shelfie" (a photo of your print book or ebook) and send it to me via social media or email, I'll send you a bookmark and put you in the drawing for coffee mugs or a canvas tote bag. Not only does it get the word out on social media to people who have never heard of Farm Fresh Forensics, but it allows me the chance to give something back to you. Words cannot express how much I dearly appreciate all of you.

My wizard tells me that I need to include a link to Amazon. Below is the link to the ebook. The print book is also available through Amazon. I believe they have them linked on Matchbook so if you buy the print book you can get the ebook for $0.99. The print book is available now but the kindle book won't be released until April 6. I tried to move that forward but I can't. I ordered a copy of the ebook for myself so as soon as its downloaded onto my kindle then I'll let you know. It's possible that they may move up the release it to March 30th.  Thank you again for being part of my tribe.

https://www.amazon.com/Farm-Fresh-Forensics-Between-Barnyard-ebook/dp/B07BPBZWPT/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522078084&sr=1

(It's here! It's here! The first book is out! I'm so excited!)

CSI meets Green Acres in The Shack!

When a Crime Scene Investigator also takes up ranching, life lies somewhere between the barnyard and the Body Farm, where the death of a chicken can turn into a full scale murder investigation. Farm Fresh Forensics is the memoir of a Crime Scene Investigator juggling farm life at home with the bloody work of murder in a major metropolitan city at night.

With one foot in the trench of tragedy and the other in a corral of comedy Farm Fresh Forensics invites the reader to slip under the yellow crime scene tape and experience the real stories behind the 5 o'clock news.

Few places better illustrate the circle of life than a barnyard where a Border Collie is the professor and a goat can earn his degree in the field of forensics. This is a story of growth. It is the growth of a Crime Scene Investigator, the evolution of a rancher, and the awakening of faith.

Get your Farm Fresh Forensics SWAG!

Send out a "shelfie" on social media with the hashtags #farmfreshforensics #sheridanrowelangford, then in the feedback section here, or through private messaging on Facebook, send me your mailing address and we'll mail you a free bookmark. This will enter you in a drawing for a Farm Fresh Forensics coffee mug, and another drawing for a canvas tote bag!

What qualifies as a "shelfie?"  Darned near any photograph of you, or your dog, or your cat, or your bookshelf with a copy of Farm Fresh Forensics qualifies as a "shelfie."

What if you aren't on social media? No worries! Shoot me an email in the feedback section here and we'll make sure you get your bookmark and are entered in the drawings for the coffee mugs and tote bags.

Farm Fresh Forensics is available in both print and ebook on Amazon. It's also available in Kindle Matchbook, so if you purchase a print copy of the book, Amazon will give you the ebook copy for $0.99! The ebook is also set up to allow lending.

Farm Fresh Forensics is available on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1985301830

If you have a moment, go check out my author website at www.sheridanrowelangford.com. I'll keep you posted there on the cool swag as it becomes available. I picked designs of both the front cover and of Briar. If you look at the Briar's eyes banner on the author website you can see the photo used for the front of the bookmarks. The two different designs were made in the coffee mugs available for the drawings. One is the front cover of Lily, the Border Collie, in the crime scene tape and the other is the Briar's eyes banner. The canvas tote bag in the drawing has the Briar's eyes banner logo. They may make one available later with the Border Collie in the crime scene tape logo.

There are also bookplates available. If you want a signed book but can't get to a booksigning, drop me a note and I'll pop a signed bookplate in the mail for you. The bookplate has the image of the front cover of the book.

The Mini-Me is settling into a routine. At night Bramble, the Livestock Guardian Dog puppy, still sleeps in a cage inside the sheep pens with a couple of dairy goats and Judge, the Anatolian Shepherd who guards the pens at night. During the day Judge is released to guard the sheep in the pasture and Bramble is left in the pen to watch the sheep maternity ward. Today this particular batch of lambs was released into the barnyard. Bramble got to spend a little time out with them under supervision.

She got too close to the lambs. She was sent packing.

Back at the barn she found her friend, Rosie the Dairy Goat.

And she found her roommate!

Judge has finally accepted her unabashed worship and genuinely enjoys her company. One day these two will be working partners. In the mean time he'll let her make her mistakes, then kiss her nose, and show her how to be a Livestock Guardian Dog.

She was not the Chinese take-out that Judge was expecting. We arrived home late Sunday evening with the new Livestock Guardian Dog puppy. Briar and Judge eagerly escorted the truck down the driveway in hopes of getting first dibs on the expected doggy bag from whatever restaurant we'd stopped at for supper. They expected Chinese. They did not expect a little sister.

A veteran of new puppies, Briar greeted the pup with more enthusiasm than she normally musters up for Border Collie puppies. I suppose in her opinion the ragged ball of fluff was actually a real dog this time, and not some black & white weasel.

Judge was not nearly as open-minded. The puppy walked forward to greet him and he fell backward over himself lest it give him white dog cooties. I know for a fact that Judge eats decomposing forest animals. His standards aren't high, so his opinion of Bramble was pretty low.

But suck it up, Buttercup. We don't get to choose siblings or dorm roommates. I set Bramble up in a stout pen that was placed inside a stall with an attached run for livestock. Two dairy goats and Judge were elected to become the unwilling roommates. The goats are with her day and night, and the Anatolian is with the pup all night. The goats spent the first night staring at her in disapproval. Judge ignored her. He wouldn't even come into the stall. On the second night she recognized him as her bunkmate and greeted him enthusiastically. He growled at her and walked outside.

Not to be discouraged, she extended the olive branch the next night too. He walked into the stall, gave a weak wag of the tail and walked past her. On the fourth night she eagerly greeted him again when he walked in. Judge gave her a decent tail wag and plopped down beside her kennel to sleep.

This morning he assumed his dayshift responsibilities with Briar while the pup was on her morning break, cavorting with her new friends, the herding dogs.

They galloped past Judge and she screeched to a halt when she recognized her roommate.

He greeted her with all the enthusiasm of a soldier guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Then he cracked. The big dog sneaked in a tail wag and an ear kiss before sending the puppy off to play.

I think these two will pair well together in the future as guard dog partners. And in the mean time, she's safe at night with her dairy goats and her bodyguard.

Except for the rustle of a bird here and there, the forest was quiet. I waited. And I waited. Then I did what everyone waiting alone in the woods does - I checked to see how many bars I had. One bar! Woo hoo! I hadn't found the Anatolians, but I had found the next best thing. A cell phone sweet spot. So I checked Facebook. Checked my email. Checked Twitter. Checked Facebook again. The forest was still quiet. Nothing. The Anatolians had already been gone for 30 hours. Even on a good day my mind jumps to catastrophic expectations. I had already mentally explored every possible way for them to get killed in a five mile radius. It's an astonishing large number. I played out the ramifications. Two buddies lost. Two and a half years wasted. One aging dog left to cover all the responsibilities. If I lost that dog none of my sheep or chickens would be able to safely leave the barnyard.

I checked again. Still one bar. I started scrolling ads for Pyrenees puppies in Texas. I did a search for Pyrenees/Komondor, like Briar. Nothing. Try Great Pyrenees. Jackpot. Any large generic white dog is tagged a Great Pyrenees. After I sorted those out I then sorted by purebred and crossbred. If I know the breeder I don't mind getting an LGD crossbred. Briar is an LGD mix. (Weeks earlier I had checked with Briar's breeder. She didn't have anything available yet. I assured her I was in no rush. One dead calf and two missing Anatolians later and I was in a rush.) So since I didn't know the breeders, the only assurance I had that the pup was an LGD breed, was for me to get a purebred Great Pyrenees. That sorted out a lot more ads. Then I had to sort by puppies from working parents that had been socialized to livestock. That knocked down the field considerably. I finally had a handful of advertisements for Great Pyrenees puppies that were clearly from a working background. The final search. Badger faces?

Briar has a little superhero mask. I've always liked that. I'm sure that if my first LGD had been solid white I would probably prefer all white, but as it was, the cherry on the sundae of my search was a badger face. A pure white pup was not a deal breaker. Obviously color means nothing, but if you're sorting, you may as well admit you like that super hero mask. A search on badger faced female Great Pyrenees pups across Texas produced two ads. I sat in the forest and debated. Did I really want to deal with getting another dog? Another freaking dog. Even I groaned. Then visions of the dead calf drifted into my head. I sent out two emails.

Here's the reality. The cold hard reality that most pet people don't understand is that these dogs are not pets. They're not. Yes, they're family members and we can make loving pets out of them, but if I just needed a pet, I'd go to an animal rescue and I'd only have three freaking dogs. That's it. No more. But I don't. I have a ranch. I have a ranch where cattle, sheep, goats and chickens spread out over a pretty broad wooded area. I must have the Border Collies to control the livestock and guardian dogs to patrol for predators. So why don't we just shoot all the coyotes? Son wanted to know that. He's a hunter and cannot understand why we don't just call, bait, trap, and shoot every coyote we find. I can argue with him until I'm blue in the face about the research which shows that it doesn't work but let's take another approach. Are you going to kill every predator that walks and flies?

After you shoot every coyote, cougar and bobcat, are you then going to kill every raccoon, oppossum and skunk? And then every vulture? I have a friend who loses newborn calves every year to vultures. Are you going to kill every vulture that circles above? When does it stop?

If my livestock were locked in a small area I'd be able to just have one Livestock Guardian Dog surrounded by hotwire. Briar grew up that way and it was very effective. But my livestock now have access to several hundred heavily wooded acres. I cannot put hotwire on the top and bottom of all that, and I will not sit out there with a rifle and kill every predator that moves. So Saturday I was reduced to sitting in the forest in an RTV waiting for my husband to clear an area on foot because it was too wild for a wheeled vehicle. I dropped him off at one point with plans to pick him up at another. He was looking for two missing Anatolians and a missing bull. (No, don't ask. They were not together.)

He met me at the creek, without dogs or bull. I told him about the ads. He grunted. He wanted an older, already working Pyrenees, but that won't fit into our household. We'd have to start with a puppy. That's another thing pet people don't understand. Why do you have so many dogs? Why don't you just re-home the old ones and the disabled ones? You could just keep the dogs that are currently working.

Seriously? That's like working for a company for 20 years and having them fire you with no retirement package. Except for two dogs that I re-homed WITH MY MOTHER because of bitch fights in the household, and one pyschotic police dog who actively hunted my sheep, we don't re-home retired dogs. They've earned that retirement. All our dogs get a nice retirement package where they get a comfortable life. Chores are modified so they still get to participate and feel like contributing members of the team. The half-blind, deaf double merle dog had extenuating circumstances and we took her on knowing that she would only be a pet. She and the Labrador are the only dogs here that could be considered pets-only. Everyone else either works, did work, or is training to work.

So let's circle to the other argument. Why don't you just trash both roaming Anatolians and get something that stays home? No. Just. No. First off, all LGD breeds roam. Some breeds may have a tendency to stay closer to the flock than others, but don't fool yourself. They all roam. People don't call them "Disa-Pyrs" for nothing. That said, I do admit I made the mistake of getting siblings. I should have gotten one brother, and then later gotten another. Separately the Anatolian brothers are great. They pair with the old Pyrenees cross and stay close to the flock. But when the brothers get together they cancel each other out. I no longer have three dogs, I only have one dog. The other two are frat boys on spring break. After the calf was killed and I actively needed them to be able to run and chase coyotes away from a broader area, they were able to handle only one day of being together. The second day they were gone for six hours, so I clipped their wings and separated them again. The next morning Jury went to great trouble to climb out of his prison and convince his brother to go walkabout. They were gone a day and a half.

No more chances. The little bastards will be separated and stay in their day shift/night shift routine which appears to work. The Anatolians left shortly before 8 am on Friday morning. We spent all day Saturday searching for them. It's physically impossible to hunt that area on a vehicle. It's even difficult on horseback because of the meandering creek. We have a drone to cover a lot of it. After covering as much on foot and ATV as possible, we drove around to surrounding ranches and talked to every neighbor, stranger, and oilfield worker we could find. One of the dogs was sighted almost 5 miles away. At 3:30 pm we went back home for lunch. At 4 pm Judge trotted up as if he hadn't been gone. By 5 pm Jury returned. They were both home safely but the their walkabout had shined a light on the chink in the armor. It was more than a chink. It was a big gaping hole. The boys just aren't ready to handle the job by themselves yet. If we lose Briar to accident or old age, we are shit out of luck. At 5:15 pm I checked my email. One 9 week old badger faced female Pyrenees pup was still available. Raised with goats and chickens. She sent me pictures.

I emailed back. Sold.  I arranged to pick her up in East Texas on Sunday afternoon. Meet Bramble. Or as my friend, Gina, has dubbed her: Briar 2.0

Briar now has a mini-me!