Our dog is a dismal guard dog. She barks all right, but at all the wrong times. For example, in the middle of the night, set off by sounds such as the furnace. On the other hand, a burglar could walk through the front door and she’d barely bat an eyelash.
In her defense, that’s not what she was bred for. She was bred to hunt birds as I understand it, point them out to her master, and then retrieve them once they’ve been dispatched.
We don’t hunt, so those skills go to waste.
However, last week I did have the privilege of spending time with some genuine working guard dogs.
When people think of the profession they probably think of ferocious Dobermans or German Shepherds salivating to get their incisors into you.
That’s not the kind of guard dogs I have in mind.
They were guarding sheep – five hundred of them to be precise, at two pastures at Kinderhook Farm. That’s 1,200 acres of rolling hills in Columbia County filled with cattle, hens and geese, and those sheep.
The cattle can take care of themselves, the poultry likewise, though a few of them get picked off every once in a while. But the sheep are, in short, sheep. Sweet, demure, delicious eventually. But generally defenseless.
Primarily against coyotes in these parts.
That’s where the dogs come in. The ones in the first pasture I visited were named Tariq, Sarge and Wink. And they were two breeds – Akbash – a large, white working dog, originally from Turkey; and Maremma, also large and white, but a shaggy haired dog native to the Apennine Mountains of Italy.
If these dogs were weapons, one might describe them as conventional rather than nuclear. They’re up to the challenge of a coyote but would be overmatched against a pack of wolves or a grizzly. For that you’d want a breed called a Kangel, a different Turkish breed.
“They’re much more aggressive to predators,” Georgia Rainey, one of the partners as well as a shepherd at Kinderhook Farm, said of Kangels. “They’ll take on bears and wolves.”
In case you haven’t noticed or heard them howling in the middle of the night, coyotes are a rather wily, successful species, increasingly so. They’ve even been spotted in Central Park.
Georgia told me that a coyote will come out of the hills night after night and call to a dog, trying to lure him away from the sheep. Once successful other coyotes will come through the back door, an undiscovered hole in a fence, for example, and help themselves to some lamb. Or they’ll lure a housedog into the hills where a pack of coyotes will be lying in wait.
That’s one of the reasons Kinderhook Farm employs five dogs at the moment. They work in teams; they have each other’s backs; the older ones teach the younger ones the tricks of the trade.
Tariq, the youngest, is a typical teenager – well intentioned but still irresponsible and easily distracted. At eight years old, Sarge is the old man in the group, the wise uncle. And then there’s Wink.
“She’s the one that got scars all over her face,” said Georgia, from a recent coyote encounter.
Georgia thought it best that she get between Wink and me until we got acquainted, since Wink’s instincts apparently tend toward the pugilistic. Georgia said that one of gravest threats to a guard dog’s longevity isn’t so much coyotes as trucks and tractors that aren’t aware they’re there. The dogs are so protective of the flock, “They’ll body block a tractor,” Georgia said.
However, once properly introduced Wink seemed as docile as your average house pet, though none of these dogs have ever seen the inside of a house.
They live outdoors, or in the barn, and were raised from a young age with the sheep. Indeed, it’s sometimes hard to pick them out from the grazing sheep, which I suppose is the point. However, the coyotes know the difference and the dogs’ presence is generally enough to deter them, especially during the day.
The dogs’ lives seem rather idyllic – basically spent napping or flushing voles out of their holes for fun and then treating them like squeaky toys. Though I suspect the voles would have a less playful description of the relationship.
It’s mostly at night that the dogs earn their chow.
They set themselves in formation against any threat, and appear to take it as a personal failing if anything happens to one of their charges. When a lamb was killed recently Wink wouldn’t let Georgia get near it. “She was so upset she wouldn’t let me pick up the lamb for two hours,” Georgia told me.
When another lamb perished Sarge refused his supper, remaining with the dead lamb. “He was there protecting that lamb and wanted me to know what was happening,” Georgia explained. “If something is wrong they’ll let you know.”
As amazing as the dogs’ dedication is the lambs’ trust and reliance on them. “If the dogs started barking all the lambs would go into the center of the field,” Georgia said. “It’s fun to watch.”
Most of the lambs are so cautious they scatter when you get near them. The exception are those who were bottle-fed and the wethers, castrated male old-timers that are used to lead the flock.
“They used to have bells on them,” Georgia explained. “Hence the term bellwether.”
“It’s a great job,” Georgia said of being a shepherd as she walked between the pastures with a bag filled with such essentials as wound care, tick repellant, and suntan lotion called Snout for the dogs’ noses.
It’s not a bad job for the dogs, either. “They get to use all their instincts,” Georgia said.
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found at ralphgardner.com
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
