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

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