Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

Ridgetop

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You were so lucky to see that behavior and understand what they were doing. Not everyone realizes what the behavior they are seeing means and many LGD owners misunderstand how the dogs work as a team to protect. That type of behavior is the LGD stuff you can't teach. The dogs either have it in their genetic makeup or they don't.

Older trained LGDs can teach it to the younger ones though which is why if you have good LGDs, you need to bring in a puppy every so often for the experienced dogs to train. This is something you have to do before the older ones get too old to be willing to teach. I like to bring in a puppy when the next oldest is fully trained and working around 3 or 4 years. At that age they are old enough to know what they are doing, still strong enough to defend against predators on their own, and young enough to play with the puppy and train it. I feel bad when people wait to replace their LGD until their old dog is 8-10 years. At that age the older dog doesn't want to train a puppy, may have health issues, and can't protect both the flock and the puppy. The puppy won't be able to help much against predators until it is about 2 years old, mainly because it won't have the experience. By bringing in a puppy to be trained by the older dog at about 4 years old, the old dog will have backup as it ages, and you won't lose it to predators when it gets too old to fight them off. Most LGDs do not back down to predators when they get too old, they still will fight to the death to protect their flock.

Our team (including Josie the Mule) will bring the sheep out of the gully and park them on the flat with Josie, then go back into the gully to deal with any threat. The dogs run around the sheep in a circle to get their attention then the sheep follow them to the "safe spot". When we had an injured ewe in the gully that would not come up in the evening, Rika ran around us in a circle when we went out to feed and led us to the ewe down in the gully. When all 3 of our dogs were here, I also saw the older 2 bring the sheep to safety, then post the younger dog with them while the older ones go back to deal with the danger. Years ago, when we had dairy goats and 2 Pyrs at lambing time, one Pyr went out to chase off the threat while the other fell back to protect the kids.

Amazing behavior in LGDs.
 

Baymule

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Besides you have Mel and Maisy to do much of the training for you. Maisy would maul a puppy and put the fear of correction in it. I sit back, amazed, at Sentry and Sheba, teaching Buford Dog Law. I put him in a pen at night, next to ewes and lambs, but out with them during the day. Protective cranky old ewes and 2 senior advisors with loud growls and sharp teeth, and this boy is coming right along. I never raise my voice at him and a simple no, has him grinning his, I’m sorry face at me.
 

Mike CHS

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Today was completely wasted. Teresa's Mazda had a dead battery yesterday and needed to be jumped to start it. The same thing happened a couple of weeks ago and I put the charger on the battery but it would not take a charge. I took it to the auto parts store where we bought it a little under two years ago and they put it on their tester where it showed "good battery".

We dropped the car off at CO-OP about mid morning and went ahead and ran some errands and had lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant that has the broadest menu I have seen. The have a cheese steak that is better than anything I ever had in Philly. I like to eat a variety at this place but that cheese steak has been my sandwich of choice for the last 3-4 times. :)

We stopped by the shop to see what the status was on the car and they were on the phone with O'reilly's to see if we could get a battery warranty replacement which we did get. The warranty expires next month but it was a free replacement since it was under the two year mark.
 

Baymule

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That doesn’t sound like a wasted day. The battery thing was a PIA, but it got resolved with a new battery. Now Teresa’s car will be dependable and will start. Y’all had lunch at your favorite Mexican restaurant, that sounds nice. Wasted? I think not. Time well spent, together. ❤️💕❤️
 

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