Farm Dogs

[Beekissed]

Weather is cooling, hunting has commenced! Dogs benefiting from the bounty...LOVE this time of year for the free and healthy food the dogs get to consume. Not only from the hunting, but also from butchering the excess and culled chickens.

I often manage to freeze plenty of deer scraps for later on in the winter also and even sometimes will clean out the freezer in the summer months to find a frozen ball of meat scraps to give the dogs...great on a hot day to get to gnaw on cold meat.

A time of plenty to put a good layer of warm fat on their ribs for winter.

 

[Hinotori]

Mine are getting the tuna bloodline I canned for them as well as tuna from a previous year. One jar a night between them. Fish is a dog favorite here.

 

[Beekissed]

This weekend I've got to establish winter quarters for dogs. Jake needs his house totally cleaned out and refreshed with new cedar chips and hay, his dog bed taken out and solarized, the cover washed, etc. Ben needs a hay house built for him for his winter sleeping needs.

Jake's house is built out of pallets and is attached to the back of my hoop coop. The pallets are stuffed with hay for insulation, even those above his head. The floor pallets were lined with plastic underneath and also stuffed with hay, then a 3/4 in. plywood laid over those. On top of that is his cedar chip layer, then more hay and then his memory foam dogbed. He's getting old, so he appreciates his creature comforts in the winter months. His house has a large overhung porch and a windbreaker wall to protect his entrance and the pop door entrance also...the chickens and the dog share the same porch. He also has an old towel stapled across his doorway to keep out the worst drafts.

Mid build...the back door, one I use to clean out and refresh his house.

Insulated roof...

The porch he shares with the chickens....the wall on the right of the pic was then built in to block wind from blowing into their respective doors.

His cozy winter digs....I left him a small window on that windbreak wall so he could scent any danger from that side easily.

In the summer months I close his doghouse door so the chickens won't get the bright idea of laying in there. He never uses his dog house until winter anyway.

Ben, being a LGD breed mix, doesn't like to use a dog house unless the temps drop down in the teens and below zero. He likes a good visual field and a quick escape from his bed. I started out with attaching a regular doghouse to Jake's porch but Ben rarely used it, so discarded that idea.

Then I moved to building a hay hut inside the spare chicken pen and that was a success for him...Jake sleeps with him there unless the temps get really low, then he heads to his well insulated doghouse and his memory foam bed. They both like to lounge in there on winter days, as the hay is soft and the pen breaks the wind but they can still see, hear and smell everything.

Ben's bed within a house formed by hay bales stacked inside the spare pen/coop...

Jake snoozing in the doorway of the "dog lounge" area in front of Ben's hay house...

It's a sweet life for a couple of farm dogs. They have a heated bucket waterer for winter as well, so nicely warmed drinking on the coldest of days.

 

[CrealCritter]

Awwww, how sweet!!! Unusual for a hunting dog to not chew on a hen, so that's one special dog you've got there.

I hope he can deter the 'yotes from your place....and especially keep them from sitting in your living room.

Amazing how the absence of one word changes the whole meaning of a sentence

 

[baymule]

@Chic Rustler if you have two, they will still roam. Put up a good fence and keep your dogs at home. It will also keep other dogs out. Then hope they don't dig under or jump over!

 

[Beekissed]

Loving all these stories of great dogs!

Someone was shooting off a .22 this morning and I could see Ben start to get anxious up there, but what really surprised me was the female cat, Miss Molly...she was on the porch railing getting some loving, but when she heard that gun shot the ears went back, a low growl started in her throat and she turned to face the direction of the shooting. I think her kittens have her in high protection mode.

 

[baymule]

Dog #1. Paris, our female Great Pyrenees. She was a free 11 month old chicken killer. her previous owners must have punished her hard because she blamed the chickens and HATED them. She rushed the coop snarling and growling at them when she thought I wasn't around. But I could see her through the kitchen window. It took TWO YEARS to undo the damage done to her, but she finally became the finest chicken protector ever! Until February of 2015, she lived in our small backyard. Now we have 8 acres.

This was the first time I let the hens out and she did nothing! This was such a triumph, I was so proud of her. This picture was taken 3-4-2013.

This picture was taken 3-26-2013. In a few short weeks from her debut as a chicken guard, she had her own pullet entourage following her around!

From chicken killer to letting the shameless hens steal bites of her food.

My Mom had a stroke and wound up living with us. Paris adored her. Mom would push her walker out on the deck and pet Paris. Paris would stand on her hind legs right in front of Mom, one flick of her paw would have knocked Mom flat, but Paris never touched her.
This picture was taken 11-11-2012.

We bought a doublewide on 8 acres, sight unseen, on a HUD repo bid. We closed in September of 2014, but didn't move until February 14, 2015--our 19th anniversary. I was gone for days at a time, painting the house and putting down flooring. In this picture, taken in October 2014, Paris was staring through the glass doors, wanting me to come out and play with her, which I did. This shows our small back yard. Paris was Queen of her yard and defended it against neighbors, loud trucks, motorcycles, falling acorns, other neighborhood dogs, feral cats that the cat hoarder next door fed, and she barked. A lot. All day. All night. We built her a back yard before we moved as she didn't get along with our Australian Shepherd.

 

[Beekissed]

Here goes....now, stop laughing!!!!

 

[Beekissed]

Finally seeing the end of Ben's end of summer blow out, a few tags here and there but he's mostly sleek once again. For a LGD breed, his sheds are not a bit bad compared to a pure GP.

He's been patrolling well, even keeping the deer out of the yard, though he doesn't bark at them...a quiet woof and running in their direction seems to do the trick. I did lose a juvenile chick in the past few days, but don't know when or how...that's unusual here, especially with Ben so death on aerial preds, so not sure what happened.

Now comes the good season for farm dogs....deer season, with all the offal, bones and meat scraps they can eat. Apples are in abundance this year, so all the apples they can eat, along with garden canning scraps, which they love.

Then comes chicken butchering, so more lovely bits like heads, feet, organs, and bones.

All of that gets them fat and sleek for winter, the only time I let the dogs put on a noticeable layer of fat.

I'll lay down a layer of lime all around the central area of their living space to deter the fall flea hatch, which usually comes along with fall rains. Doing that this spring really eliminated our flea problem here, for both dogs and cats.

Pretty soon it will be time to refresh dog house hay for winter sleeping. Ben doesn't like a dog house, so he likes to sleep amidst hay bales in the spare coop...Jake has taken to sleeping there with him unless it's teens below zero, then he heads to his very snug quarters built off the back of the main coop.

Jake sleeping at the doorway of the spare coop ...

 

[baymule]

Grand Daughter #2 giving Polly some love.

Grand Daughter #3 pulling up, using Polly to steady herself.

What a good dog.

Yesterday we were gone all morning. When we got home, we let Polly and Parker out and I went to gather eggs. I brought them in the house and went back outside. Polly was laying in the dirt, jerking spasmodically and I knew immediately she was dying. I screamed for my husband and he came running to find me sprawled in the dirt, holding Polly's head and crying. She was gasping for breath, drooling and her eyes were jerking wildly. We didn't know if she would be like this for minutes, hours or days. Not wanting her to suffer, we put her in the back seat, in my lap and DH drive us to the vet to put her down. She died before we got there.

We went home and placed her in a wagon, to pull it to where we were going to bury her. Trip started nuzzling Polly. Parker came up and Trip growledat him. We were not prepared for Trip's behavior. He nose bumped Polly over and over, trying to rouse his friend. He bumped her harder. He pulled her fur with his teeth. He nudged her leg, raising it up. This caused the water works to flow, both of us bawling our eyes out.

I petted Trip trying to help him understand and let Parker come up to say goodbye. We walked away to get shovels and Trip stayed next to Polly.

We pulled the wagon to where we were going to bury Polly and Trip guarded his friend.

Our neighbor Robert came over and finished digging the hole, then covered her up. He loved her too. My husband said a prayer. We went to the house but Trip stayed by Polly's grave a long time.

The intuitiveness of Trip just blew us away. He gave us licks and hugs. He showed a love for Polly that we just weren't expecting. He tried to comfort us in our grief and tears.

Goodbye Polly. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for being so patient with our grand babies. Thank you for the love you showed to my Mom when she needed it most. Thank you for the hugs, thank you for the gentle nudges, wanting us to pet you. Thank you for being a damn good dog. We love you and we miss you.