The best way to combat boredom in a young livestock guardian dog … is not to combat boredom in a young livestock guardian dog.
Let me unpack that for you. March has us about a third of the way through lambing. We had some intense coyote activity at the beginning, but the livestock guardian dogs shut that down. We haven’t seen them much since that time. The owls here nest in February, but they learned long ago that to hunt here is fruitless. Things have settled into the daily grind. I check on babies and wait for spring.
Boredom
It’s the perfect time for a young livestock guardian to get bored. At 8 months old, Punica has been livestock safe since birth. Fondly known as “Piggy,” she is my hold back from last summer’s litter and headed to her new job this month.
Even with adults around, it’s easy to fall off the wagon at this age. Part of the training process here teaches a young livestock guardian dog several important lessons. Patience is a big one. Just like small children, the ability to wait until something changes is a learned skill.
I do not provide “busy” things here. No scheduled walks and no bones filled with peanut butter. I want my dogs to learn how to find things to do on their own. This is a working farm. There are plenty of old bones to dig up and sticks to play with. A bit of old wool left over from last year’s shearing makes a fine toy. Amuse yourself with feathers melting up out of the snow from previous molts. When all else fails, you can always snooze in a patch of sun, until you are needed.
I include my dogs in the rhythm of farm life. They learn to roll with the randomness of weather, seasons and emergencies. What starts out as morning chores might turn into warming a lamb by the wood stove or a drive to the vet to have porcupine quills removed. When an emergency happens, I can’t always stop to tell you what to do while I’m gone. I need you to make good decisions on your own, even if you’re in an area where you don’t typically work.
It’s one of the reasons I ask my dogs to be proficient at every job on the farm, whether it’s goats, sheep or poultry, I need you to be everything safe — not just the animals you guard.
When I have to rush an animal up to the house for extra care, I need to know that you will respect the fence you are in, the gate that may or may not be shut tight in my rush to exit and be perfectly fine with whatever animals may be in that area.
One of the most interesting aspects of the training program is how the adults put those early lessons into play. I have guardians who will put themselves back where they belong and even spread themselves out to cover areas left vulnerable by an emergency. I trust these dogs to handle things when I am not here, and good decision making skills are the very foundation of that trust.
Imagination
I also encourage imagination. “In a dog?” you say.
Yes, intelligent dogs can develop the ability to make up activities to entertain themselves until there is work to be done. We want to make sure those activities are appropriate. At 8 and a half years old, great-grandpa doesn’t always want to wrestle.
The perception of work is also interpreted differently by each dog. We have very strict rules about food respect here due to the nature of our setup. Sheep and dogs eat their own food and respect each other’s space. Mostly. Nothing ever runs perfectly and, as luck would have it, my best ewe is also my worst ewe.
Just as I was finishing chores recently, movement caught my attention. I turned to see Punica chasing a ewe. I had hung around long enough for her to finish her kibble and help everyone succeed. That one ewe sees young dogs as an opportunity for extra, and she can be particularly persistent. Curious about Punica’s motivation, I squelched my knee jerk reaction to correct, and simply waited. She pursued for about 5 feet and then left off to circle back around and stare up at a large pine tree.
As I watched, a fat, gray squirrel came cautiously down the trunk, grabbed his pine cone off the ground and scurried back up out of sight. Apparently, he had dropped his snack, and the nosy ewe had run to see if it might be something she wanted. Per the rules, Punica told her to keep her face in her own dish.
As with everything else, she was appropriate in her actions, and as soon as it was over, went back to playing in the straw bedding — the activity I had interrupted when I came to hand out breakfast.
She is sweet, smart and a capable guardian, currently out with lambs smaller than her head. And, when boredom strikes, she chooses to play in the straw and make sure everyone gets their breakfast.
