We’re Getting a Guard Dog! Why I Changed My Mind

A dog almost bit her. Greg Judy said not to pet them.

We do discourage people petting them. Um, we'll give them a good boy maybe once, just reach down and say good boy, but then when you leave that paddock, you got to make sure they don't follow you back to your truck.

And he told me about how hard it was to feed them when they're inside with sheep.

I've sold sheep to people, I'll go out there, I'm like, where's your feeder at? Well, we hand feed our dog. I'm like, what?

Yeah, we hand feed.

Well, they put the feed on the ground and the sheep are up there just devouring it. The dog might get 2 bitefuls. That's not hand feeding your dog, that you're feeding your sheep, and you've already trained them now to be dog food eaters.

It's been over a 5-year dream of ours to get a guard dog. It's our last full day here and I really wanted to go see their guard dogs. And find out more about those things. That's what we're interested in getting, those one day. I mean, look at these puppies we saw at Full Circle Farm. Oh my word, guys, have you seen these puppies yet, Mr.

Brown?

Yeah, there you go. Look, this is pure white.

I hold it.

You come see the dogs too.

Come here and pet this dog.

You picking up the dog?

Yeah. Carrying them around.

How old are these puppies?

Uh, they're about a few weeks.

Where's the mom? Oh, just 2 weeks?

Probably 3 weeks actually.

There's the mom.

Hey, you did good, Mom.

Thanks for letting us see your pups.

That'll warm anybody up, won't it?

They're here.

And look at how well the dogs were trained. To the chickens.

You guarding the chickens?

She's guarding the egg layers.

How are you able to feed her separate from the chickens?

Okay, put the dog food in.

It's automatic feeder for the dog.

You go and get something to eat when you want it.

This is where you stay, River? A house attached to the egg mobile.

You said she doesn't sleep in there. Where does she sleep?

She doesn't. I mean, she can, but she doesn't. She usually just lays down under here.

Okay.

Or under that thing.

All right, but They do need training.

I wondered a couple of things. One, how do you get the dog to stay out here with them? She says they bond them, and the way they did that is when they initially trained them at 1 years old, they tied her up day and night for about 5 days with these guys. And then after that, they tied her up— she can't remember— at least a month at night to train her to stay with the chickens. And then they eventually bond and she stays with them naturally.

So come on, wouldn't it be cool to get a guard for you? Something like you, of course you're gonna have to stay in. The guard— the dog can't guard you outside the fence. But then again, Rebecca almost got bit. Why is it we haven't gotten a guard dog yet?

Um, I don't know.

Well, we chilled out on a farm dog and just ended up settling for a goose. At that time, we only had chickens. Then we went to this farm recently that's— that was selling all its livestock, and we went a little crazy. I bought 2 steers, I bought 10 market pigs. Speaking of which, we're making sure, uh, that our water line is working. Then we've been having to haul water to the pigs way over there. There's our house way over there, so that's not been too fun. I think if we can hook it up to this one, we can run regular hoses. We don't have water line in yet. We can run regular hoses all the way up to there. We should have enough hoses. Then they told us about the guard dogs they had for sale, and we're like, hmm. And as you may know, they're selling the farm because they have to, uh, the investors are pulling out. And you could, you could tell they really didn't want to sell those dogs. They really like those dogs. You were saying that the dogs are the hardest for you to give up.

Why is that?

Because they become part of your family. Um, you get them when they're babies and you watch them grow up and you see your family interact with them.

You got us on and on.

Yep.

Okay, let's see if it's working. Let's see if water's coming out. It's a long way to go uphill. There's no water yet. Well, we went to see those guard dogs and they were surprisingly friendly to us. They seem happy to see the children.

But they're not touching the fence.

No, they're not touching the fence, and they don't need a doghouse. No doghouse.

But these are the younger, a little bit younger.

They were—

they turned 1 March 1st.

They're trained to sheep and chickens.

These ones are sheep, these are chickens.

All right, these are the chickens.

The last couple days we've been trying to—

the sheep ones don't seem to be going after the chickens, huh?

No.

So I asked him, you can handle them like this and you leave and they're not going to follow you. Does that mean you go in there and pet them?

I pet them.

Yeah, you let them out?

I let them out.

Yeah, and they still— they still are trained and they don't try to get out and come after you? He assured me that they would stay put. Wow, look at the work the pigs have already done in here. Just one day. You guys are happy little pigs. There's still one problem, and that's the feeding problem. But he said he had a Greg Judy guard dog fear.

Um, this is their dog feeder. This is drug from paddock to paddock.

Okay.

And all we did was took pig panels. These are permanent pig panels. You cut them up. This is a 3-foot piece. That's a 3-foot piece. And these are fours. And the dog, he doesn't jump over this. He comes in here and he slides under. Ah, and then this is a— excuse me, this is a magnet. So as they eat, it's gravity flow. You fill it up, up here and it just keeps going down.

And this, guys, keeps the sheep out of the dog food.

Yeah, sheep won't go in there. The biggest cost of your sheep is the dog feed for the guardian dogs.

That's the biggest cost of your sheep, the dog feed. Okay, you're gonna let me pet you? You're gonna let Can I pet you? Oh, that was probably only because he's drinking water. Uh-huh. There he goes. Nice. Is this one so nice? No, it didn't take long to tame them though. Our 5-year-old dream was smoldering in the ashes, almost forgotten, and it just got revived. We just put some oxygen on it and we've got a little puff and we should be getting this dog Next week or the week after at the latest. There's water!

Why are they so thirsty?

There's water up there. They're drinking. They were just finding it more convenient down there, I guess. Yeah, they're drinking. It's coming out. It's filling up.