Esma and Lokum update

Just for the record here, I wanted to say that for the past couple weeks Esma has been coming up to me during feeding time and seems like she is happy to let me pet her.  This is a first since she's been here. 

Also I have suspected that Esma and Lokum have been sometimes sleeping together in the same dog house and last night for the first time I actually saw them in there curled up together.  It's been cold lately in the single digits and below zero degrees Fahrenheit.   

I built a big insulated dog house with this in mind, that they would go in it together.  It's about 4' x 5' wide and tall enough for a Kangal Dog to stand up in, with 6 inch walls insulted completely with old sheep wool top bottom and side walls.  

Kangal Dogs Esma and Lokum Hanging out together 10-18-19

Esma and Lokum hanging out yesterday afternoon. 

Esma is wearing a catch line because she still won't come to me, not even for food.  She cannot be bribed.  She has been very wary of strangers since the day I brought her home. Even after keeping her in the house the first couple months she still is uneasy when ever I come around her. 

NOTE: ~I only put the catch line on Esma when she is in larger area's where I would not be able to easily catch her, she does not ever wear it unsupervised.~

Esma is great with the sheep and quickly dodges any bossy ewes that try to head butt her, unlike Lokum who gets aggressive towards them when they do that to him. 

Esma and Lokum seem to compliment each other nicely, I'm glad I have the both of them now. 

 

I've been letting them stay together for long periods of time by connecting their pens but Lokum has begun digging huge holes and I'm afraid he will dig under the fence so back to supervised only visits until I can make other arrangements.

Good article about Kangal Dogs

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/blog/kangal-soldier-of-the-steppe/

Kangal: Soldier of the Steppe

January 5, 2016 | 

Editor’s note: The kangal (pronounced khan-ghahl) is a breed of large livestock guarding dog originating from the city of Sivas in central Turkey. The breed is not used for herding, but to defend flocks of sheep from wolves, jackals and even bears. The kangal is such an effective guardian that it has been imported to the U.S for the purpose of protecting livestock from wolves, lessening the need for more extreme control measures such as wolf culls. In the piece below, Bernd Brunner, a writer who splits his time between Germany and Istanbul, explores the relationship between these fearless dogs and their Turkish masters.

The Kangal – also known as the “Anatolian Lion” – is Turkey’s national dog

The independence and courage of these hard-working animals is the stuff of legend, and exporting Kangals from the country is forbidden. The history of the dogs is intimately tied with the history of Turkey itself. But as the forces of modernity find their way into the furthest reaches of Anatolia’s wild plateaus, the role of the Kangals is changing, too.......

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/blog/kangal-soldier-of-the-steppe/

Second time together

 

 

 

This evening was Esma and Lokum's second time being together. They're reunion is coming along nicely.  

The first time together Lokum tried mounting her two times and each time I told him to stop it he stopped right away.  This time he tried playing with her, he kind of tackled her he's very much a puppy still even at  4 years of age, but like when he tried mounting Esma I told him to stop it and he stopped.  Esma's response was to ignore him even though she was getting tackled.  

I let Esma and Lokum spend many hours by each other in adjacent pens, she seems happiest when she is by him. She eats best by Lokum as well.  

I still bring her in at night as she is still very skittish around us and people in general.  However Esma does wag her tail and get a little excited when I bring her food.  

So far the only way I can catch Esma is if she is in confined quarters.  She tries to evade me but as soon as my hands touch her she stops and submits to having a leash put on, once the leash is on she calms down and does quite well.  When Esma is in the back play yard I can't catch her out there and she won't come to me so I let her in the house and then I can catch her in the house.  

Even getting her in the house has been a process, in the beginning Kelli and I had to kind of round her up and herd her into the house the two of us, but now If we step to the side and open the door she quickly scoots inside breezing past us so as not to get too close.  

We are convinced that she has had one or more bad experiences with people.  Perhaps when she was loose for 5 days or something else.  

Last night we had a thunder storm and she seems to be quite afraid of storms and hid under the piano all night until morning.  

Esma 4 weeks-Kangal Dog

It's been 4 weeks since we got Esma. 

This is her favorite place in the back yard. 

9-14-19 Esma and Lokum First Walk

This was Esma and Lokums first walk together. I've been keeping them in adjacent pens for extended periods and several times all night.  Numerous times on the walk Esma made the first move to go closer to Lokum.

Esma is a different dog outside away from people, way more confident of herself. In the house she is still rather jumpy.

I have her on canned dog food and some dry. She prefers the canned food.  It's been a challenge getting her to eat enough to put some weight on. She prefers to eat outside rather than in the house and even more so out by Lokum which I find interesting.

Esma-Day 8 "Awkward"???

The photo's below were about the 4th time of bringing Esma and Lokum together through fences. Each time Esma wags her tail when she sees him. And Lokum is usually overly demonstrative. 

Lokum on the left Esma on the right

I posted a couple of of these pictures on facebook and someone thought that the dogs looked "awkward". If they look awkward or stressed it is because I was making Lokum sit by the fence so that I could get them both in the picture at once.  So he wasn't real happy about being made to do something and Esma was being shy about the whole thing. So yeah they don't look at ease in the picture but that's why. And I had just brought Lokum back from having a run so he was panting heavily. Otherwise when I first brought Lokum over to the fence they both were at ease and happy to see each other.  It was actually the first time that Lokum didn't become overly demonstrative, probably because he had just burned off some energy.

These pictures were taken yesterday which was Day 7 of having Esma. I am counting the drive day last Thursday August  29 when we actually picked her up. 

Today is Day 8.  And for the past several days I have switched her to canned dog food.  It's been hit and miss trying to get her to eat as we want her to gain a little weight. But the canned dog food is the key to getting her to eat regularly. I've been feeding her twice a day with whatever treats in between that I can get her to take.
Today she started sleeping in our grand kids tipi.  Another step to feeling more at home here.

Also just a few minutes ago I went out to feed Esma and it began to rain I thought she'd run back into the tipi but when I opened the door of our house to come in she was right there and eager to come in with me. This is unusual because almost every time we bring her in we have to "herd" her in as she will not just come in when we open the door. She gets spooked and runs around the outside perimeter until we can funnel her inside the house, usually taking 2 of us to accomplish it.  Only a few times has she come in when we open the door and coax her.  So this too was a first. There will be many more "firsts" in the days to come. 

Esma day 5

As of last night Esma began to bark while out in the back yard, which I think is a good sign that she is acclimating to her new home. She also barked a couple times today.  

Yesterday I brought a half dozen sheep in the back yard to mow the grass and then brought out Esma, she did very well with them even when they would try to butt her. Her response was exactly what I would hope for in a livestock guardian dog, she simply avoided them.  Lokum on the other hand snarls and bites at them if they try bossing him.

Esma came from a farm that had goats so fortunately she is already accustomed to livestock. But with a new dog I never know what to expect and one that's 5 years old already.

 

In the above video I happened to catch a perfect scenario of the sheep getting bossy with Esma and her great response of simply getting out of the way.

It's been a little touch and go with feeding Esma, she won't eat out of a bowl so I have been putting it on a paper plate, mixing dry commercial dog food with the raw meat that we got from Jennifer. She has actually been leaving a lot of the dry dog food. 

So today I went to the store and got various kinds of canned dog food. This seemed to be the trick as she quickly devoured the canned dog food. I happened to open the diamond brand lamb and that's what she liked. 

Diamond is the brand I have been using for all my Kangals.  So if she keeps liking it I will probably stick with this brand. Just trying to get some meat on her bones before winter gets here.  

Esma-Day 4

This morning we introduced Esma to the sheep and Lokum. She did excellent with the sheep. I kept Esma on the retractable lash.  Every time the bossy ewes would go to head butt her she quickly dodge their advances. Esma is nimble and quick on her feet.

Then we took her to see Lokum and of course Lokum was over the top exuberant, whining profusely and barking. Esma was interested in him and sniffed him through the fence unintimidated by Lokums demonstrative behavior.

Esma does excellent on any leash the retractable leash or a regular 6 foot leash.  Which is remarkable becasue out in the back yard or even in the house she is jumpy and won't come to us. To get her inside from the back yard two of us have to almost herd her inside with the door propped open. Yet on leash she comes instantly when we call her.  

As I am writing this Esma is in the back yard and she alerted to something out in the field and barked. I see this as being a good step in her integration to her new home.

Introducing Esma

An opportunity to replace Sarah came up remarkably fast.  Esma recently came up for adoption, so last Thursday Kelli and I traveled to Bloomington IL to pick her up.  Her owner has had some big changes in her life and needed to find Esma a new home. So here we are with Kangal Dog number 4. Of course Arie and Sarah have since past. So we only have two Kangal's as of this writing.

Esma set up in the back of our old Suburban

Jennifer and her daughter who we got her from coaxed Esma up into our Suburban.  It's a stressful transition for many dogs to be rehomed and I think especially so for Esma because she is quite wary of strangers.

When we stopped for gas on the ride back to Wisconsin we saw that Esma had found herself a hole to lay/hide in.

Esma had her head buried in the corner of her hole as seen from the open rear passenger door at the gas station.  This is where she stayed almost the entire 6 hour drive home. Every time I checked on her this is what I found. 

We decided to keep Esma in the house at least until she warms up to us. We may or may not be keeping her as a house dog. We no longer have any house dogs so have been thinking about getting one so it is a possibility she will wwind up in the house.  However right now the main reason for keeping her in the house is that if for some reason she escaped an enclosure she would never come to us, I feel it is critical that she learn to trust us, as she is vary wary of strangers.  And we are total strangers to her, even 3 days later. 

The first thing I did was take Esma out in the back yard so she could relieve herself after the long ride. I kept her on the lease because I had no idea if she would attempt an escape or not. 

I always remember the story about one of our rural neighbors who got himself an Irish Setter, he had to drive a ways to get the dog and as soon as they got home he opened the door on his truck to let it out and it took off and he never saw the dog again! That would be a horrible feeling! And I never want to ever experience something like that.

We did have something like that happen many years ago, we had bought our young daughter a baby Shetland pony and it was just being weaned from it's mother.  We only had it for a matter of hours and it crawled under the fence and escaped! We searched until dark then gave up till morning and a neighbor over 1/4 mile away had found it grazing in his yard and wondered if it might be ours. We got him back so it ended well. 

Esma got herself a good drink of water that was in our grand kids toy. 

Just before we got her apparently Esma was on the run for around 5 days and she got quite thin, so for the past 3 days I've been trying to get her to eat plenty, but she is very mistrustful.

I am wondering if people tried to bait her with food in order to catch her and perhaps failed in catching her a number of times since she is SO mistrustful. So wary of even being given food, very jumpy and bolts away over the slightest thing. And she won't eat out of a dog bowl. It's a metal dog bowl, she will drink water out of a metal dog bowl but simply will not eat out of one. I plan to get a plastic bowl to see how that works. 

She's been on a raw food diet so I am attempting to mix dry dog food in with the raw stuff that Jennifer gave us. Yesterday while out in the back yard I laid on the ground and took small hand fulls of the food and tossed it next to her on some concrete. She would eat the little bits like that until finally she had the whole thing eaten. Then later for another meal I tried putting it on a paper plate out side and she ate it off of the paper plate. And I got her to eat out of my hand later yet.

Today I fed her on a paper plate outside and she ate it that way. She may or may not eat chicken organ meat that we dried ourselves. Usually she will but only if I toss it on the floor or ground in front of her.  Fattening her up is going to be a challenge.

Tonight she barked for the first time. I was beginning to think she wasn't territorial at all, but she is starting to feel secure enough to bark. She barked on to separate occasions.

Overall I like her personality. She is total opposite of Lokum. I don't think they could be anymore not alike in temperament. Lokum is bold and unafraid of anything or anyone. And Esma is very wary of people.

I took her out to see the sheep today and she was very interested in them and gave a slight wag of her tail when she saw them. Her and Lokum saw each other to, separated by 2 fences. She was definitely interested in him and he barked and whined at her. I almost think Lokum thought she was Sarah because he was always happy to see her and would whine, he behaved in a similar manner with Esma.

Esma and Lokum have history, as they both came from the same farm. Jennifer owned Lokum as well and he sired pups via Esma.  I am eager to see how they do with each other after having been apart for a couple years, however I am not in a hurry, I have patience when it comes to these things.

Will they remember each other?

Lokum

Latest of Lokum

Kangal Dog-Sarah-7/4/19

I had to put down Sarah today.  She got lame in her hind end and could no longer get up.  I think she was 2 years old or so when I got her back in 2012.  So that would make her 9 or 10.  

I'm not sure if it was hip dysplasia or what.  Whatever it was she was completely lame.  It's been coming on for awhile, probably the last couple years.  It's been getting harder and harder for her to get up from a laying down position.  

Last week she got stuck behind some pallets that were leaning up against the barn wall, and couldn't get herself out.  I had to remove the pallets and help her stand up.  Then 2 days ago she got down and I couldn't get her on her feet.  After 2 days of that I made the decision today that it was time.  She was in bad shape so that helped my decision.  

Sarah was by far my best Kangal Dog.  

I still have Lokum and he is doing well but does not live with the sheep.  He visits them frequently but I have never trusted him being unsupervised as even now he still gets very rambunctious.  Now that Sarah is gone I will probably work harder at integrating him with the flock, but I don't expect too much, however he does seem to know them pretty well.  

Lokum sure liked Sarah. Many times I put them together and they bonded well.  Sarah never liked him being around the sheep and would act aggressively toward him when he got too close.  But anytime I took Lokum to Sarah he would whine a high pitched whine in excitement.  It was sad today when I took him too her paddock after I buried her and he was looking all over for her.  

Sarah always was kind of a stiff legged dog, not real agile, but she made a fine guardian dog for the sheep as she was territorial and definitely made her presence known.  

She will be missed. She already is.