Music Video

This video is of a number of pictures I took today of Arie and the sheep in the movable pen. I put music to the video. The music is by Dennis Lee on a hammered dulcimer. The song is "Star of the County Down".

We had some fresh snow and Arie played in it.

A few pictures of Arie on 11-20-10

Height and Weight on 11-19-10

Ariella grew a lot the past couple weeks. Her weight today was 90 pounds on our "un-official" home bathroom scale. And her height was 27 inches.

This will probably be the last time I weigh her on our bathroom scale because I tweaked my back lifting her. I can carry a 100 pound bag of grain on my shoulder fairly easy but, an ever moving pup is another story, plus having to bend over enough at the hips to see around her body to read the scale.

I was thinking that once she is too big, I will see if the Vet will let me go in every couple weeks or so to weigh her. Besides it would be good training for her to go into the Vets office and not be poked with needles. Maybe she would start to like going in there.

Arie will be 6 months old on Monday.

Food
I've been feeding her more raw food lately. Raw chicken, and raw chicken hearts, livers and gizzards. Also we're still working on the road kill venison. Over a month ago I gave her too big of a piece of venison and she got diarrhea for a couple days, so I backed off on the raw food. But, have gradually been increasing it again and she is doing good with it. I still feed a little Purina Puppy Chow just to make sure she is getting enough vitamins.

I'm a little afraid to go to a full raw diet, as I'm trying to learn more about it. I've been looking at this website http://petgrub.com/ about a raw food diet for pets. But, I haven't heard anything from a different perspective yet. I don't like to go with something until I have heard the same thing from at least several other sources. However, in my thinking, the more natural a diet you can get would be most desirable.

I just don't want to make Ariella deficient in any thing with the high rate of growing that she does. But, at the same time I don't trust commercial food to not give her cancer with all of the preservatives and junk that they pack that stuff full of. I've had dogs in the past that came down with cancer and I just can't help but think it was directly attributed to the commercial food that I fed them.

I'm putting a lot of time and effort into raising this fascinating animal and I'm having a great time at it. She is a very neat dog. I'm still very impressed with the breed, and as far as I can tell from what I've seen on the Internet, Arie's temperament is exactly that of a Kangal Dog. It's amazing to see video from around the world of Kangal Dogs that behave just like she does. They are a unique breed.

Training

Arie is now being "trained" by Stanky the more dominant goat. Stinky no longer puts up much of a fight when Arie plays with him. She gnaws on his horns and he seems to not mind it much. I don't want her doing that though so that's why I switched her to being with the other goat.

Arie still tries to play with him but, he is still able to make her mind her manners. Just the other day however, I saw a funny thing. Stanky must think she is another goat or something because he was trying to woo her with his charm. He was doing the whole goat courtship thing and had her on the run. He chased her all over the pen attempting to mate with her. She would have no part of it of course.

Ariella's training is a continuing process. She has a very sharp temperament and tries to dominate everything. And watch out if an animal gets near her when she's eating. Even with Stankey she will lay into him. She has done this since she was small. But, now she has more size to back up her threats. So far I've had no problem with her feeling threatened by me when she eats but, I am keeping watchful for it. I make a big deal with her when I give her food and so far she is happy for me to be there.

I've been working with Arie being around the house dogs. She still wants to play all the time and she now towers over even the Golden Retrievers. Ben tried to bite her today. He still does not like her. She was quick to jump away from his fangs however. She has become accustomed to evading the goats horns so I think that is why she was so quick.

I believe you could say Arie has a high "prey drive", which I am glad for given the caliber of predators in these parts, (see the below wolf video). But, it is making for a challenge with training her to be proper around the livestock and other animals that belong here. I just hope she doesn't develop a killer instinct towards the domestic animals.

Apollo, the Siberian Husky I used to have was a killer. He used to have the run of the farm until one day I caught him trying to hamstring one of the horses we had here. I penned him up after that. But, he got out a few times and every time he did he'd kill something. On more than one occasion chickens lost their heads if they were foolish enough to poke their heads into his enclosure. And one time Kelli's favorite cat got in with him and he killed and ate it.

I figured back then that once a dog got the taste of blood then they could never be trusted. However a few years back I communicated with Walter Jeffries of Sugar Mountain Farm who has years of experience with his own LGD's and he once broke a dog from killing livestock with a shock collar. He said it turned into one of his best dogs. I never tried it with Apollo as he was already up in age but, I can see how it might work if done correctly.

So I really want to stay on top of Ariella's aggressive tendencies before it becomes a problem. Her temperament is kind of a double edged sword. It's great to know she will go after anything that is a threat but, it can come back at us too. Something to work on.

I'm getting an area ready for the main sheep flock to stay for the winter. It is were Arie will be as well. I've been letting her run around in there and play over this past week. She absolutely loves to dig! So if you are someone who wants to keep a Kangal Dog in the back yard be forewarned if you are the type of person who likes a manicured lawn. She can dig holes with just a few swipes of her huge paws! Which I think is characteristic of most Kangals from what I have learned.

I've been around dogs all my life and have owned quite a few over the years so I don't consider myself a novice by any means, yet Arie is teaching me a lot, just by staying a step ahead of her. She's smart.

A nearby wolf pack

While at the veterinarians yesterday one of the workers there told me about this video taken in a township not very far from us here. It is of a 13 member wolf pack. I personally was distracted by the music which accompanies the video so feel free to turn off the sound.

We are reminded frequently in these parts of the fact that we need good watch dogs like Ariella and that we need several of them. Maybe even a whole pack of Kangal Dogs.

Here's a link to the youtube user who uploaded the video. http://www.youtube.com/user/jfksr7 The credit for the video goes to them.

up-date

I put Arie back with the lambs tonight after dark and she still knew there was another animal in the pen. She barked and growled at him but, not with as much intensity as earlier. It being dark helped that I think. I think she will grow accustom to the new lamb in time but, then again there is a divider keeping them apart. I haven't let her have access to the lambs for some time now as they really have no defense against her wanting to play. She stills respects the goats and adult sheep however. In time I am hoping her drive to play will diminish.

An on going process

Yesterday I took Ariella back to the Vet for her follow up Lyme vaccination which they had talked me into the first time we were there. And this time they tried to talk me into another type of vaccine yesterday for leptospirosis but I declined. They said that leptospirosis is a fairly rare disease but, is found in southern WI and is moving farther north to about the middle of the state. But, they highly recommended I get it for her since it comes from wild animal urine and with her living outside like that it is possible for her to come in contact with the urine say, from a raccoon or something. Well, they didn't convince me and I could tell the vet was disappointed I didn't go for it. I told them I wanted to wait and think about it longer. Especially when read in a pamphlet that the past vaccine they had for it gave a lot of dogs an allergic reaction but, this new one hasn't been doing that. No thank you I'll wait to see how the "new" one does in time first before I make that decision. Plus as far as what I understood the disease isn't even this far north yet.

If you read the post about Arie's first visit to the vet you will know I'm no fan of vaccines. If we consider every possible disease a dog could contract I doubt any could survive with all the vaccines you would need to dump into their systems. Again, I wonder how in the world anything has ever survived up to the present day without vaccines in addition to the whole host of chemicals and pharmaceuticals foisted upon both man and beast in these present times.

But, onto other news. Arie was 78 pounds on the official veterinary scale yesterday. Which was lighter than what I hand gotten on our bathroom scale a number of days ago. When I use the bathroom scale I weigh myself then pick her up and weigh the both of us but it is getting harder to do the bigger she gets. She's getting to the size where she doesn't really like getting picked up like that and it is getting harder to look over the top of her girth to read the numbers. but, what I saw was well over 80 pounds. It looked more like 84 or 85 pounds to me. I have an idea we got a light reading at the vets as well because she didn't want to get on it this time and the assistant took the reading on the fly. I still think she is over 80 pounds. And I measured her yesterday too and she was just over 25 inches at the withers. It looked like 25.5 inches actually. One inch taller than last time I checked.

Some Behavioral Observations

Earlier today I took Arie with me to remove a male lamb from the main flock. He is getting to the age where he might start mating with the ewes he is with which we wouldn't want. I had Arie tied up on a long line while I climbed over the fence to fetch him. I put a leash on him and set him on the outside of the pen. I walked the lamb towards Arie. Since he had never been on a leash before he fought it some so it wasn't like we just walked easily toward her. It was a little bit of a struggle. Well, I'm not sure why exactly but, with the lamb being outside of the pen Arie seemed to think he didn't belong. Perhaps it had something to do with the struggle against the leash. She went nuts. Barking and lunging against the line. I was surprised because she always seems friendly toward the sheep in the main pen when she is by them. I figured she'd be happy to see him and want to play, but not so. So I brought him closer for her to get a good look and to sniff him. It didn't help matters when he began to squirm. I stood there with the lamb by her but, out of her reach. I couldn't console her, she seemed to see him as something that didn't belong. After a little bit I brought him close to her again to let her sniff him. This time she bit his wool and pulled with almost a death grip. She did not like the little fellow.

It has been awhile since I actually had her in the movable pen with the main flock because it is getting too hard to lift her over. But, I figured I'd better put her in there to see how she would act without a barrier. So I took apart a fence panel which allowed her to squeeze on in. Right away an adult sheep butted her. And she turned into a completely different dog. She wanted out right away. But, I stayed in there with her and kept them from butting her. I sat down in the grass and she stayed right by my side. She was on their turf and it took the aggression right out of her. We stayed in there for about 20 minutes. Although she got somewhat comfortable being in there she never made any attempts to play or to go near any of the sheep. She was submissive the whole time.

In the mean time I had put the lamb inside a big dog crate in the pickup truck to transport him to the pen where Arie's other lambs are. After our time with the main flock we went back to the truck and Arie turned back into "Miss Aggressive". She circled the truck sniffing the air trying to find that lamb that was in the crate. The lamb is over half grown now so he's not like a baby anymore. Anyway, she acted like he was something that did not belong like a wild animal or a dog or something.

So we drove back to Arie's lambs and I put him in with them. Arie was frantic. She definitely saw him as a threat. Which would be great if he really was a threat. She was in the truck barking at him ferociously. This is some different behavior in a dog. Something I am certainly not used to. I took her to the house and tied her up outside. She could see the pen where the lambs are and she continued to bark at the new comer. But, after a little while she settled down. I will see later when I put Arie back by them whether or not she will except him in there.

I'll make a post later to tell how it goes.