I realized last weekend that I hadn't posted any updates to my Livestock Guardian Dog journal for some time. Elko, our new pup, is growing quickly - and his behavior is evolving, too. As you might recall, we'd placed Elko in a paddock with an older ewe and several ewe lambs. One of the older ewe lambs had apparently decided Elko was her lamb, which was intimidating for the pup. At the same time, Elko had taken to trying to play with the younger ewe lambs. We decided that we needed to move him - both for his safety and comfort, and to help him understand that he shouldn't play with the sheep. We put him in a smaller paddock with two of our rams, which seemed to help. He's more respectful of the sheep, but the rams don't intimidate him like the ewe lamb did. We'll keep monitoring his behavior - he may go to the ranch to live with our entire ram battery once we separate them from the ewes. We'll also consider putting him with one of the older dogs for a few weeks (with sheep).

On Saturday, I also had a chance to observe some interesting behavior with our older dogs. We combined breeding groups last week, so both dogs are in the same paddock at the moment. Reno, who is approaching 10 years of age, is a neutered Anatolian male. Bodie, who will be 2 early next year, is an intact Anatolian-Maremma cross.

On several occasions in the past, Reno has killed raccoons that come into his paddock. If you've been around raccoons, you'll know that they can be fairly vicious - most dogs give them a wide berth. We always keep an eye on Reno after we find a raccoon to make sure he doesn't develop infections from bites. On Saturday morning after I fed the dogs, they both trotted to the far end of the 3 acre paddock and began barking at something in a small tangle of blackberries. As I approached, I realized that whatever it was they had cornered was snarling and defending itself.

Here's a video of what transpired:

I made several observations:

1. Reno is definitely still the alpha dog in this group. He took the lead in investigating and challenging the intruder to the paddock.
2. The sheep responded to the alarm raised by the dogs. Whether it was because they didn't like the barking or because they knew the dogs were communicating that there was an intruder, they decided to move away from the commotion.
3. Once I decided to move the sheep into a new paddock (to allow the intruder to escape - if you've watched the video, you'll know why), the dogs both decided to stay with the sheep rather than continue to try to get at the intruder. However, both dogs remained focused on the blackberry patch on the other side of the fence).

The literature I've read suggests that livestock guardian dogs may fill the ecological niche typically filled by wild canids in our environment (mostly coyotes in the foothills). The behavior I observed last weekend would fit this hypothesis, I think. Over the course of the next several months, I'll be using game cameras and GPS collars on both sheep and dogs to test this idea further - stay tuned!