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| Dillon, in the bonding pen. Candy the pony is helping out! |
While Dillon is a bit older than I prefer to get a pup, I was confident after talking with Cole that he'd been raised with sheep. Both his parents were working dogs - another plus. And when I got him home from Porterville late at night and placed him in a kennel until I could put him with some sheep, he proceeded to bark at the coyotes who were singing up the ravine from our house - a very good sign. At the moment, Dillon is living with a ram who is recuperating from a respiratory illness - the ram is teaching Dillon some manners and socializing him in the process. In several weeks, we'll put the pup with some dry ewes. This fall, he'll go out with an older dog during breeding season. His final exam, like Bodie and Elko before him, will come during lambing season in a year or maybe two - we'll let one of the older dogs proctor the exam.
All of this is a long-winded introduction to my main point - how many dogs are enough? How do ranchers make the decision about how many dogs they need to protect their livestock? As with most things related to living systems, the answer is complicated. In my experience, there is not a linear formula to follow here - one dog per 100 sheep, for example. If this were true, my friends who run 5,000 ewes would need 50 dogs - which none of my friends have! In the real world, I suspect, most of us assume that one dog is better than none, and we'll keep adding dogs until death losses from predators drop to a level we can accept (in relation to the cost of acquiring and keeping the dogs, obviously).
This reinforces the idea that the right number of dogs is highly dependent on environment, operational characteristics, and the other livestock protection tools that an individual producer might use. We seem to need three dogs in our operation; here's why:
We currently run approximately 100 ewes on leased land at some distance from our home place. We run two separate breeding groups in the fall (October 1 through mid-November). After breeding, the rams graze annual rangeland, while the breeding flocks are combined into one mob that grazes on annual rangeland or irrigated pasture. Around December 1, the mature ewes and yearlings move to our winter rangeland west of Auburn, where they will stay until they are done lambing (on pasture - no barns here!) in late March or early April. At that point, the pairs (ewes and lambs) move back to irrigated pasture; the rams move to another property and graze on annual rangeland. In mid- to late-June, we wean the lambs. Many are sold, but we keep the replacement ewe lambs and a handful of feeder lambs on irrigated pasture throughout the summer. The ewes go back to our rangeland pastures to control weeds and reduce fire danger. Around September 1, we combine the ewes and lambs on irrigated pasture and begin preparing the ewes for breeding. In addition to using LGDs, we protect our sheep from predators with electro-net fencing and by moving them frequently. From our own observations and from game camera photos, we know that we regularly have coyotes, foxes, and bobcats in close proximity to our sheep. Occasionally, we assume (from talking with our county trapper) that we have mountain lions and black bears near the sheep. And free-roaming "pet" dogs are an ever-present threat.
After weaning, then, we have three separate groups of sheep (ewes, rams, and lambs). Last year during our breeding season (when we had two groups of sheep), we lost a ewe presumably to a coyote (which necessitated putting 2 dogs with one breeding group and pulling old Reno out of retirement to protect the other). This suggests, to me, that we need three dogs during at least part of the year. Each dog costs us about $500 per year in food and vet costs. A working-age dog (given the purchase price and our success rate in starting a dog) costs around $1,500. He (she) will have a working life of 6 years (on average). If I add the replacement cost (my accountant calls it "deprecation"), the annual cost of owning a dog comes out to $750 per year. At current ewe and lamb values, this means each dog has to prevent 3 ewes or 5-6 lambs from being killed by predators each year. I suspect our dogs earn their keep!
But adding a dog - even when it's not a linear relationship between number of dogs and number of sheep - isn't a simple proposition. I can't simply run down to the local LGD store and pick up a dog when I need one. Lead time is a critical component - as is having just the right number of dogs! In our environment (and with "our" predators), I think a dog needs to be at least 18 months of age before he or she can be responsible for sheep. I know there are folks who sell dogs ready to go to work, and I've talked to folks who have "rescued" LGDs and successfully placed them on ranches. My experience, however, suggests that I need to start OUR dogs. And so I've circled back to our newest pup, Dillon.
Over the coming months, we'll expose Dillon to our electro-net fencing. We'll teach him to walk on a lead (which is necessary for our adult dogs when we're moving sheep along county roads). We'll move him in the stock trailer with a load of ewes. And we'll observe him and correct inappropriate behaviors. We'll never scold him for barking (that's his first line of defense, after all), but we will correct him if he roughs up the sheep. We'll want him to learn his name and that he should come to us when we call him - but I won't worry too much if we fail at this lesson. My most important criteria for Dillon - or for any other LGD - is that he stay with the sheep, that he treats "his" sheep well, and that he prevents predator losses. We're hopeful Dillon will be a useful addition to our security team!
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