Once we get moved to our farm and begin adding animals, we plan to also add livestock guard dogs. Dogs trained to protect our chickens, ducks, goats and sheep from predators. Dogs trained to send out the warning when something or someone is on our property who doesn’t belong.  Dogs who will respond in an appropriate manner to protect our animals.

We have three such dogs in our home right now. . .  sort of. Our dogs are excellent at sending out the warning when something or someone is on our property. They are also good at sending out the warning when they hear someone pulling in our driveway or driving down the road or pulling into the neighbor’s driveway or walking down the sidewalk, or walking one opposite block. But today, one of our dogs was sending out a warning that caused me to walk out on the deck to see what in the world was going on. He was staring down some terrible creature in the yard, who obviously did not belong and if I would just open the gate and let him out, he would protect all of us from the predator.

As I was peered over the side of the deck to see what creature was wreaking all the havoc, a small bird flew away and our protective dog went running across the deck barking to let that horrible creature know he was not welcome on our property.

I feel so safe with this little guy around.

Unfortunately, he’s not as predator proof as he probably thinks, so we’ll have to provide him a safe place on our future farm.

Our other two dogs are also good about sending out the warning signals, but they really aren’t livestock guard dog material.  Fortunately, they are cute and very good at letting us know when something isn’t quite right.  Having them on our farm will be very good.