Home Sunset August
In the first part of the 2 part series, Jackie shares more about our relationship with our pet/working dogs. They are invalualable for remote off the grid living when there’s livestock involved..
Good Dogs
Living in a remote area with livestock makes it necessary to have good dogs. We have been blessed over the years by our canine friends. Our current dogs–Heidi (almost 8 years), Ozzie (7 years), and Molly (7 years, sister to Ozzie), are the ones guarding the place. Ozzie and Molly are recent acquisitions. We acquired them last July. They are Lab/Australian Shepherd. Heidi, we have had since she was 7 weeks old. She is Australian
Molly, Ozzie, Heidi
Shepherd/Great Pyrenees. She is the best dog EVER. Over the years she has chased off coyotes, alerted me to rattlesnakes, hearded baby chicks, and even saved my life when a berserk llama attacked me.
Heidi’s Weakness
Heidi does have her faults though. Where we live, up in the mountains in North Central Washington, we have to snowmobile 4 miles to get in and out during the winter. Heidi LOVES to chase the snowmobile. She started out by chasing us down the driveway. Then down to “the red gate”. And it escalated to ALL the way down the mountain. It got to the point that we couldn’t even lure her into the house if she knew we were taking the snowmobile down the mountain. We had to go through an
Our Lovable Stinker
elaborate ritual to fool her into coming into the house. I couldn’t be seen wearing my snowmobile suit. She KNOWS what that means. We couldn’t start the snowmobile either. It got to the point that she was suspicious ANY time I wanted her in the house.
For awhile if we left and forgot about her, she would do what I call the “sneaky chase”. She wouldn’t risk being seen following on the drive way, no she’d stalk us in a running sort of way. She’d run through ravines and behind bushes, off trail a few hundred feet, to not be discovered! We’d be a mile down before seeing her.
Occasionally, Heidi would get the idea to follow the car down the hill if everyone was going. In this case she’d always take the road since the brush without snow cover is hard travel. A couple times we tricked her and stuffed her in the car, where she stayed for our errands. Now getting captured and put in the car is quite the game.
Departure Ritual
After all these years we finally know the drill. This fall we had one snatch and capture to the car incident 1.5 miles away. Fortunately, nothing on the snow (yet). Needless to say, we now have the instinct to ask each other, “where’s Heidi” BEFORE getting ready to leave!
Do you have livestock guarding dogs? or dogs that ‘think’ they’re guardians? Please share your stories and comments below!
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