Living Off Grid – Our Livestock Guardian Dog

Reader Contribution by Ed Essex
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I saw an ad in the Spokane newspaper that read “Do you have trouble with raccoons, coyotes, bear, or cougar? We don’t.” 

That had my attention. We live fairly remote in the mountains. Even though we can see the highway from our place, we only have one neighbor about ½ mile away and we aren’t exactly on good terms with each other. There is no cell phone service except inside our home. We are on our own – completely.

We have two horses and chickens that run free inside twenty fenced acres. There is no one to watch the house or animals when we leave. Two years ago there was a bear breaking into homes and recreational trailers and cabins and really tearing things up and causing a lot of damage. The Game Department gave me permission to shoot it as a nuisance bear but someone else did first, just 2 miles down the road. It had previously broken into our next door neighbor’s recreational trailer twice! They live about 250 miles away and come here a few times a year to camp and relax. Imagine how they felt – twice! That bear just tore their trailer to pieces.
We have coyotes, owls, weasels, and hawks cruising through here on a daily basis. Friends of ours have seen two wolves within 5 miles. Bear, bobcats and cougar are common. In short, our home and animals are unprotected whenever we aren’t home.

We weren’t interested in a dog that was aggressive by nature but we didn’t want one that would run from danger either. We looked around and researched guard dogs, watchdogs, regular dogs and everything in between. Two breeds caught my eye. The Estrala Mountain dog which originates in Portugal and the Anatolian Shepherd which originated in Turkey. When someone local advertised dogs that were 7/8 Anatolian and 1/8 Pyrenees mountain dogs we responded right away.

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