Working Dog!

If you were on the email list of blog recipients, (I am allowed 10 people to spam) once again I hit some button that sent the email of the blog out, before it was completed. I never seem to tire of this. If you have the time and technical expertise to find it, it is worth the read and explains how we ended up the proud owners of our Anatolian Shepherd "Rosie". She is of course a dog and not an undocumented shepherd girl from the Anatolian plateau in Turkey.

The dog breed, however, did originate there perhaps as long as 4000 years ago. She is a "guard" breed and has all the instincts necessary for her particular job bred into her. She doesn't round sheep or goats up like an Australian Shepherd or similar breeds. No, she is in the protection racket and will stand up to whatever seems to be threatening the herd. So, it is important to use her accordingly. This breed of dog is not meant to be kept in the house or on the end of a chain or out in a dog run. Eventually its lack of purpose would cause problems.

So, unless you have a herd of goats or a flock of sheep that you are interested in protecting, don't run out and buy one.

We moved Rosie directly into the goat barn. When we picked her up, she was being kept in a very small pen with a few goats. She wanted to come to our barn and guard us. She is very friendly and at first appearance is just another friendly dog. The breed matures slowly, as it turns out, and gets more dominant and protective for awhile. All the websites that talked of training Anatolians emphasized the need to socialize them and due constant training to keep them lower on the pecking order than you are.

As I was reading the training tips the night we got her, I was thinking that perhaps the reason we ended up with Rosie was she was too sweet to be good at protection. Well, the first day proved that wrong. In the morning, we went down and let the goats out at first light and studiously ignored Rosie. Ignoring her, lets her know that you are not down there to see her and your world does not revolve around her. Her world must revolve around you. This is hard since you want to make over her. After a bit we acknowledged her presence and did make over her. After the goats had hay and water, we filled a bowl with dog food, made her sit and put the food down. After she had eaten a bit, I picked the bowl up and moved to a different location and repeated the process. She was cool with it and I was beginning to think that some of these dominance games would be unnecessary. Well, I can be wrong. While I'm watching her eat, one of the goats came over to see if Rosie's menu was something she might want. When she approached the bowl, Rosie snapped at her, careful not to actually bite her, but, surprising both the goat and myself.

I waited a while after the goat had tried a couple of more times with the same results, lost interest and move on and picked the bowl up again and made Rosie sit while I put it back down. She was accepting me as somewhere above her in the pack. So far, so good, but I will have to make all the dominant tips into habits.

My training will be much harder than the dogs. I am inconsistent. Fortunately Kris is pretty patient with me. We're going on ten years of trying to train me. In comparison Kestrel was trained in a few months. The dog commands are simple there are a dozen or so to keep straight. Unfortunately, I just tell the dog what I want instead of using the proper command. It would be easier to get results if I were to stick to the twelve commands instead of expecting the dog to learn the entire English language. Well, we all have our foibles.

I figured we would give Rosie a few days to settle down and accept this as home before we took her and the goats out. Seemed reasonable. Kris ignored me and opened the pen and brought the goats and the dog out.
"Lets see what she'll do."
I was thinking she is probably going to head to Augusta and after a few months lost in the woods, show up at the farm where we got her and become a Disney movie a few months after that.
"What if she runs? I asked.
"Gotta find out sometime," she replied and the added, "You have to trust your dog."
So out came the goats and off went the dog. I envisioned hours of fruitless searching and calling. After a bit, Rosie reappeared up ahead and then disappeared again.
As we marched the goats past main barn and out to the woods road, Rosie returned and scared the goats who all tried jump in our pockets. "Easy girls, just Rosie." Seeing the havoc she was causing she slowed and approached more tentatively.
"Good girl Rosie," Kris patted her head and gave Rosie a treat. She liked the attention, but was not crazy about the treats.

This pattern went on as we grazed our way through the woods. It became apparent that Rosie was working the woods the way a hunting dog does only peeing and marking alot. It occurred to us she was communicating her presence to possible predators. She did not stay in amongst the goats but worked the surrounding woods and then returned. Calling to her was unnecessary and we finally figured that out and relaxed a bit and just let the goats graze their way around the woods roads for an hour or so. We went back to the goat pen, put the goats in and fed them grain. We put food down for Rosie just outside the pen, so it wouldn't seem we were catching her. After awhile, I picked up the food bowl and carried it into the goat pen and Rosie followed me in without hesitation.

We were very pleased with Rosie and took the entire group out again later. This time, when we passed the woods road that the equipment sets on she began barking aggressively at the wood chipper. She got between the goat herd and the machine and moved in menacingly towards it. Kris told me to go over with her. Bravely, I approached the wood chipper with her. When we were close enough for her to see it was just equipment, she relaxed, stopped barking and went back to ranging around the herd without looking back. This is the behavior that Anatolians are bred for and we are thrilled.

Rosie has been a remarkable success which could have gone the other way. Using her for the purpose four thousand years of breeding helps a lot I am sure. She is a working dog, doing what she loves and indeed must do by her instincts. We still have to introduce Rosie to the chickens but, I am sure that Kris will have her trained way before I learn to keep the commands straight.