Maremma

[dferguson]

Thanks cakadu. I live in northern Nova Scotia. Have had Suffolk cross breds for a lot of years. Had a bad coyote problem til I got the dogs. Haven't lost any since, but almost lost one of the dogs last fall from blood poisoning from a coyote bite. They keep the coyote at a distance, but this pack came in one night. Haven't been back. Hope never.
I didn't know there was a Maremma Assn. Perhaps you have some info on them?
Where is your place?
Thanks again.

[cakadu]

I'm glad to hear that your dog is okay - a good dog is a real treasure.

We live in west Central Alberta - about 1/2 SW of Red Deer. The coyotes are just terrible around here as we have a flyway that they use at the bottom end of our quarter and it is quite bushed at the bottom. Now that we have the two dogs, I don't think that there will be much of a problem at all. We have lost lambs in the past and so far all are present and accounted for and there are no moms bawling for missing babies.

There isn't a Maremma association that I am aware of in Canada, but there is one in the US. I still can't seem to find the information, but I will keep on looking and when I find it I will post it.

Some days I feel so sorry for the 2 guardians because they look so tired in the morning. Permanent graveyards is quite hard I think. We are hopeful that this year with Jude accompanying them out to the pastures that the sheep will want to stay out longer and graze. With only the one dog, the coyotes could flank and with the number of sheep we had, it was quite tough for just the one, but with two I think it will be a totally different story. Jude will follow right along with them and he is the last one to come in from the pasture.

With our original dog the sheep got very used to his barking. If he started to bark they would bunch together and if he kept barking, they would just come home. He was always between the sheep and whatever he saw was the danger, as is Jude. We've actually watched Jude round them all up - no mean feat with over 400 of them - and put them into the pen by the barn and then sleep near the gateway so that the sheep don't go past him and nothing comes in the gate either.

The only down side to Jude is that he has not been socialized to people at all and if he is not with his sheep, he doesn't get any attention at all. We can't get really close to him - he stays back with the sheep. It is hard on me because he is such a beautiful dog, but we cannot "ruin" him as my husband says, so I just marvel at how well he does his job. If he is away from his sheep we just tell him to go to his sheep and he goes back.

I think that we will have to look at getting a pup ourselves in a couple of years because we will want the pup to learn all the good things from Jude.