Josie is our Maremma guardian dog. She watches over our sheep flock with the help of her 2 year old pup Thor. When the snow was still on the ground, pregnant Josie (on her territorial rounds or chasing a coyote - who knows?) disappeared for three days. We looked everywhere to no avail. Fortunately she reappeared but with a deep wide cut all around her hips and belly area. It looked like she was snared or caught up somehow in some downed smooth wire. How she got loose we'll never know.
Anyhow, she (and the vet) took good care of that cut and it was well healed before her litter of 7 pups was born. We found them in the corner of the barn all snuggled up and nursing voraciously on the morning they were expected to arrive. My, oh my, it's quite incredible how quickly those puppies have grown! Starting at 5 weeks they practically inhaled their meals of lamb milk replacer and puppy chow. Now, at 9 weeks, they're getting regular dog crumbles and water and I always wonder if I'm giving them enough. It goes down so quickly! But I don't want to overfeed because the experts all say you don't want big breed dogs to grow too fast, makes for future arthritic and hip problems. I just keep checking their condition and activity level and they're looking good, thriving in fact.
Josie is a wonderful mom. She and Thor take the pups on tours around the farm, making sure they know every little place of interest. We have a regular feeding time ritual every day at 7:00 a.m and 4:00 p.m. I head for their pen in the barn with a bucket of chow and all the puppies underfoot. I spread an old sheet on the straw and put 2 roasting pans on the sheet. While doing this the pups wait politely (really, they stand aside and wait!) until I pour their food in the pan. Then it's gobble gobble till it's gone. We play a tumble down game while I roll them off the sheet, then I sneak away through the lambing barn so they won't follow me to the house.
Because these dogs are meant to be sheep guardians rather than be pets, raising them has proven to be a mixed bag of joy and frustration. Just try to tell your friends, neighbors and grandchildren that they aren't to be cuddled and loved, that they must be chased away if they try to hang around human activity. They look like tiny white fluffy polar bears, stare at you with sad puppy eyes, and wag their tails in innocent expectation like they'd really enjoy being petted.
On the other hand they chase your bottle lamb away while you're trying to feed him; wait up by the barn until you look the other way then sneak under the yurt to enjoy a nap on the cool ground underneath; howl and cry like something is killing them if they find themselves all alone in a strange situation; and they really enjoyed frolicking in my seeded garden playing chase, jump and roll until we added page wire to the rail fence they were crawling through.
But they're settling in. Josie parades a string of them on a round of the home yard in the morning while the sheep are accomplishing their daily chore of keeping our grass under control. They're curious about everything, setting up dominance patterns which may change completely when they get to their permanent homes. They alternate between activity and sleep, more sleep, more activity. Josie took 3 pups across the beaver dam one day and one fell in. You should have heard the hullabaloo! For some reason the wet one was pounced on by the other two and I had to grab them by the scruff of their necks to stop the chaos. Josie just looked on, didn't seem to think there was any reason to fuss.
Last night I went up to the barnyard to feed my bottle lamb. I was so pleased. The pups were all relaxing among the sheep, bonding to their family. It seems like the older they get the more this is happening. You see the sheep and the pups and grown guardian dogs are there amongst them.
I'll miss them when they're all gone, but it sure will be peaceful around here.
