Replacing a dog like Scooter isn’t easy, and I’m not confident we’ll find his equal. But we learned an important lesson with him: it’s best to start with a young puppy. Scooter was only about eight weeks old when we got him, and he was acclimated from that very early age to the whole environment and expectations of our farm. Ideally, we could find a border collie puppy to take his place…and we will continue looking for one. But, in the meantime, we need a dog of some sort to get to work.
I’d almost forgotten how much fun little puppies can be; it’s been nearly four years since we got Scooter. He’s bright, inquisitive, and a quick learner. He enjoys tagging along as I do chores, and is eager to please. Best of all, he’s small enough so the other livestock (even the barn cats) are able to teach him his place and ensure he doesn’t turn predator. He may have some bird or hunting dog in his mongrel mix, but at this early age I think we can break him of any inclination he may have to attack the chickens or ducks.
I’d also forgotten how much trouble little puppies can be, especially before they’re housebroken. And how much they chew on everything. And get into everything. He spends his days in my office with me (and his nights in a crate in my office), and the building is unfortunately starting to smell like it. Hopefully we’ll get him big enough soon to be able to spend his nights in the barn, and by next spring to be patrolling the property at night.
And we’ll make sure we get the front of the property fenced tightly enough so he doesn’t meet the same fate that Scooter did.
6 comments:
Congratulations on your new puppy. I love Shepherd mixes. He is adorable.
He's a handsome pup who has found a good home where he'll live a grand life. Congratulations to you both.
What a cute little dog. I hope that is the couch in your office, I can't imagine the Mrs. letting a dog on her couch. :) -Loretta
Sorry you lost you dogs. Have you considered Great Pyrenees as LGDs. We are unbelievably happy with ours.
Karl - we've had three Great Pyrs in the past; they are terrific guardian dogs, but our biggest problem has been containing them and keeping them from roaming far and wide. They're so big, they always found a way to bust over/under/through fences. We lost two of them to collisions with cars. The third was "off type" and attacked newborn lambs; we had to get rid of him.
Now that we can secure the sheep each night in a barn, and we don't have the coyotee problem we had in IL, we've found smaller dog breeds make more sense for us.
Awesome! Such a cutie too!
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