I’m suggesting that finding a place in the world where sheep ranchers don’t worry about packs of domestic dogs preying on sheep does not prove it isn’t a problem elsewhere.
And just how do they herd their sheep? I would imagine they use horses. Now, just how would horses fare in trying to herd sheep in the landscape I provided? How would you propose we mix guard dogs in with the sheep that our herd dogs are trying to bring in? If a flock is several hundred, but naturally breaks into much smaller groups in the tree covered landscape of California, how effective would the guard dogs be? I don’t know of any ranchers in the area I grew up in that had dogs that stayed with the sheep.
Yes, some dogs can be trained to protect sheep. Those are dogs trained from puppyhood to do so. Most dogs see sheep as prey. And the primary reason that cats kill more wildlife than dogs is that cats are often allowed to roam free, whereas in most of the US, most dogs are kept on leashes and don’t have the opportunity to kill wildlife.
When I was a kid, leash laws were a lot less common. And wildlife was a lot less common, too. And I bet those two are related. Once most of the dogs got tied up, rabbits and deer and everything in between was much more able to multiply.
Watch the video. You see herding dogs. Different dogs do different jobs. Same as humans.
This has been done for, literally, thousands of years. This is nothing new. Far from it.
And while these particular ranchers do not worry about domestic dogs they worry about coyote and badgers and bears and mountain lions and wolves (and they note wolves can be a real problem for their dogs). And they do this over a vast range.
If their dogs are useful guards against all of that then why would Fluffy on vacation be a problem?
The point is, why don’t these farmers have guard dogs (or donkeys)?
If you have a bank you invest in a vault.
If you are rich and famous you have guards with you.
If you have sheep in an area where other animals will kill them you should invest in guards for them.
That or you think it is just cheaper to lose some sheep to Fluffy, the New York posh Pomeranian who runs amok at night while on vacation indulging her bloodlust.
You can see herd dogs in this video here (queued to the right time). Why are you insistent that one dog does all the jobs? Guard dogs are not herding dogs. And vice versa.
Also, there is no shortage of videos of dogs being livestock guardians:
I’m sorry, I still just see some sheep moving slowly away from a dog along a path (with a fence on one side and a steep hill on the other), but no evidence of purposeful herding. Do you consider the “herding” of the dogs in your example to be the same general activity as the example I linked to?
All we have is you saying you once worked on a farm somewhere. I want to believe you but you are being so weird about this I am not sure anymore.
I have provided examples to you. More than one. I have noted that this is something that goes back thousands of years. Loads of evidence for it.
But you are nitpicking when a Border Collie (known for herding) comes into frame with a Great Pyrenees known as a guard dog? They do different jobs. That is why they are both there.
And those donkeys or dogs may kill your dog, if you let it loose around here. (Or the farmer may do so.) So don’t do that.
But no protection is perfect.
Nobody is saying Pomeranians are killing sheep. I in fact said specifically that very small dog breeds can’t kill sheep. You appear to be saying that German Shepherds couldn’t possibly kill sheep.
So, you regard that Border Collie trotting alongside the larger dog to be herding the sheep.
Congratulations.
You have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that:
All herd dog breeds are sheep herders, regardless of training or visible evidence.
There has never been a financially viable sheep ranch in the area I grew up in, due to the amount of predation without guardian dogs.
All domestic dogs in rural areas that aren’t working dogs never chase down sheep (or is it that all non-working dogs in these areas are the size of Pomeranians and probably named Fluffy?)
I am 100% fine with that. It is sad but if someone is so lazy that they do not socialize their dog and they let it out to terrorize other animals then their dog getting killed by a farmer or guard dog/donkey is what it has coming to it.
Sucks but I think that is all on the owners of the rampaging dog. Be better owners of your pets. They deserve your care.
Surely you know snark when you see it. And I only said my dog would not harm the sheep.
so you weren’t talking just about one specific dog. The only way I can read that is that you were saying that you don’t think dogs in general, yours or other people’s, would hunt sheep, or for that matter would kill anything else.
Yup. In my experience most dogs I have met would not kill a sheep.
But I have grown up in suburbs and cities. All the dogs I know are house dogs.
Maybe farm dogs with little socialization are murdery fuckers and can barely be trusted.
Are those the dogs that have owners who take vacations to idyllic sheep country and bring their murdery-fucker dog with them and then let them out at night to go on a rampage?
As for my dog, she has been dead 10(ish) years (old age) so I cannot prove it but would have bet all I have I am right about that.
Of course they’re not going to kill sheep if they’ve never had a chance to. You have no idea whether they would kill a sheep. They’ve never been let loose around sheep. They’ve probably never been let loose around any animal they haven’t been socialized not to kill, except possibly squirrels and pigeons, who are very hard for a dog to catch.
Dogs are not like humans. There are no serial killer pets who play nice by day but are murderers by night.
You know your pet well. How they will act around other animals should be no surprise to their owner.
Some pets may be aggressive. The owner certainly knows that and should account for that. (True for any pet of any sort…cats, dogs, gerbils or anything else.)
I think everything I’ve brought into the conversation has been to introduce real world experiences on farms and ranches that contradict a “one size fits all” theory of sheep ranching environment and practice.
If you are in a suburb or a rural town and own a medium to large size dog, a collie, shepherd, boxer, retriever, etc., the fact that your dog behaves itself on the leash or with other dogs at the dog park does not mean that dog is not capable of chasing down a sheep and killing it as part of a pack. That instinct lies a lot closer to the surface than you might think. The evidence is that, in fact, it does happen. And that doesn’t make them “murder” dogs. Just dogs.
Guardian dogs can help mitigate any predator attacks, but that does not mean they are a solution in all cases, and the hills I grew up in are a factual example of that. Real world ranching is a continuous set of decisions that force other decisions. If you have herding dogs that are trained to harry and drive the flock under direction, you can’t have them working with a flock with a guardian dog trained to react violently to those type of actions. Ranchers will end up choosing one or the other, which leads to different methods in different parts of the world.
One size does not fit all. Theory meets an ugly fate when it runs into actual practice.
The farmers/ranchers (not sure what they are properly called) talked about this in the videos I linked. When it takes 7-10 days to round-up the herd they definitely needed herd dogs.
They noted the guard dogs needed to be able to distinguish legit threats to the flock from non-threats (people or animals). They even noted that the dogs needed to run off human trespassers but not attack humans.
Not all dogs were suited to the task. The good ones could and knew friendly dogs and humans from interlopers/legit threats. Dogs are pretty smart.
The discussion about herd and guard dogs and all that is off topic and will end now. The topic is why people prefer cats over dogs and we shall return to that, comparing cats to dogs as pets.
