[media id=13 width=320 height=240]
A dog best known for protecting sheep is looking for a new home this Christmas.
“He is a beautiful well behaved large dog, looks like a Great Pyrenees,” said Pilot valley resident Don Sutton. “He showed up at my house last week, just as friendly as you can imagine. He looks like about 18 months to two years old. I really can’t keep him but I don’t want to take him to the pound. It would be almost a sin to put him down.”
[media id=2 width=320 height=240]
According to Sutton’s description the dog probably belongs to one of several breeds of livestock protection dogs originally from the Mediterranean Basin of southern Europe, North Africa and West Asia.
Unlike herding dogs such as shepherds or collies breeds of livestock protection dogs as their description implies protect the herd usually goats or sheep but sometimes cattle from predators.
While their lineage goes back as long as 5,000 years they are still in use and can be seen accompanying Peruvian sheepherders in eastern Nevada during the spring and summer months.
Needing very little if any training the dogs mingle with the sheep and fend off attacks from local predators such as coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions just as their ancestors fought off wolves, jackals and lions at the dawn of civilization.
The dogs success also has a tragic side however. Because they are so easily trained any pup will do and once the season is over the adult dogs guarding a particular herd are either put down or left to fend for themselves once they are no longer needed. Used to be fed regularly and having a instinctive aversion to hunting large herbivores most of these cast offs slowly starve to death over the winter or die of cold, unless they are adopted by sympathetic humans.
