Jacob Sheep

I was considering the possibility of the fog being ganged up on by a pack of coyotes and a male being more dominant in that situation. Plus, I have a line bred female Dogo with some beautiful dogs in her bloodline and I've long dreamed of pulling out some of those traits into a new pup.

Here’s how I look at it, it’s a tough situation because with powerful dogs like that you have to be able to predict their behavior before you can correct it. For instance, I did not allow my Dogos to be people aggressive whatsoever and would quickly nip that behavior in the bud knowing that it was a dominance issue and they needed to know their place. On the other hand, it was their instinct to have prey drive and I was more forgiving for their animal attacks. That said, I wouldn’t sell a Dogo to someone who wanted to do attack dog training because the only way that should work with a Dogo is if they believed people are prey and that is a very dangerous and unruly situation. But I have very little tolerance for a dog that attacks people without command and having dealt with many powerful dogs have put down several to both protect people in the future and the breed’s reputation.

To be open, I could understand the instinct of a Shepard dog to protect his “flock” and how that attack could happen and I can understand if one does not handle a dog fighting just right they might get bit from an angry dog, and I might forgive that too but the minute that dog turned on and challenged me, being his master or my/his master’s family, I’m going to have to be digging a hole.

Unlikely but perhaps if I got past the heat of the moment I would make an exception for the aggression towards me and mine being the dog was in the heat of battle while following his instincts but only if I felt I could correct the behavior (dominance factor). Otherwise I’d consider him a future threat and again I simply do not tolerate a dog having the poor judgment to bite friendlies and I especially don’t tolerate a dog that doesn’t accept me and my family as Alpha and tires to flex his dominance over his master.

 

Interesting, the coyotes around here usually can't get off the property fast enough when they see me so I would think this device might spook them pretty well.

 

Pretty sure I came up with a name for one of the lamb ewes in my biblical Jacob Sheep flock, Baathsheba.

 

Upon hearing my idea of "Baaasheba" someone suggested I name my ram King David. Seems to fit being he was a sheep herder, was in love with Baaasheba and this ram is going to have quite the crown of 4 horns and could call him King or K-D for short.

Still looking for name of other ewe with many small spots on her coat and 2 small black eye patches around her eyes.

Planning to pick them up on June 1st. Their new pen is nearing completion and is coming out awesome. Serious overkill but I'm having fun with my building skills. A 52' x 80' area with 3 sections which they will share with chickens and maybe a llama. My chicken coup is also coming out cool and I've narrowed down my breed selection from 50 varieties to 8 favorites and still working to get it down to 4-5 breeds. Never knew there was so much to consider about chickens!

 

Here is the gang, I've had them for about 5 weeks now. They were pretty wild and scared at first but they're all coming up to me now and 2 are eating out of my hand. They are totally spoiled and getting fat but shortly I'm going to turning them out on the 5 acres during the day and that should get them more exercise and eating weeds rather than rich grain and alfalfa hay.

 

I learned something about sheep yesterday. We've had several rains lately and the vegetation is growing so I let them out of the pens to run the property. Whenever I feed them grain I first give them some by hand because they are pretty wild and won't come up to me otherwise.

I was was calling them back to the pens with a can of grain and they all ran right up to me and the male, who usually stands off even let me pet him a little for the first time. Then I walk over to the gate.

As I reach for the gate I'm hit from the side about 6" above my knee, ...HARD! He made about a 6' run at me and would have knocked me down if I weren't standing with a good base of support and weight shifted to my other foot. I almost fell again as my other leg almost buckled because of the shock from the blow which put my Quadriceps/Vastus Lateralis to be specific into spasm. I was totally caught by surprise and couldn't hardly believe how hard this innocent looking sheep just nailed me!

Years ago I used to wrestle with a good sized goat all the time but he never hit like this! I have a 4" wide swollen area on the side of my leg and am still walking with a slight limp today. Anyway, I faked going after him, because I was too messed up to actually do it, and he backed off, but it made me think what if I had fallen and he kept coming after me. I could have gotten beat up bad by a sheep if there was more of where that come from! Maybe it was a lucky shot on his part but it got my attention!

So, I'm thinking 3 things: #1 why did he do this and it seems to be a dominance thing #2 how powerfully this sheep was able to hit me and #3 how do you fight a sheep and show him who's boss?

On a side note, I now have a new insight of why the word "Ram" is used in our language for things like Ram Tough Trunks or Ramming force!

As for fighting back, obviously I couldn't punch this guy in his head hard enough to deter him nor do I think even grabbing him by the horns and kneeing him in the head wouldn't do much. I don't want to hurt him but I'm pretty good with a hammer and thinking about carrying one! Maybe a billy club would be better, but I'm not going to be bullied by some sheep!

These are the type of sheep I have. My boy is pretty healthy looking and I think he'd give these guys a run for their money:

 

I have a different mindset now that I've gotten used to the idea of this Ram's abilities.

I want to be patient with this dumb animal and probably need to give up on the idea of getting into a dominance battle of who can thump harder.

These sheep really are dumb and I could probably dodge his attack every time or I could catch his horns as he's coming in and stop his momentum. I can distract him by throwing some grain on the ground and try to get him to be more accepting of me. It seems he hit me because he was impatient about waiting for his grain.

Now that I've learned to respect his power I will keep my eye on him. I'm not crazy about the idea of this becoming some kind of game between me and him every time we meet but I figure in time I will be able to beat him at this game easily and won't be taking it so seriously. After all, I'm sure shepherds have had to deal with this forever and barely give/gave it a second thought. Nothing new under sun here. Although, it would be nice to know some of the tricks of the trade from the experts and not have to learn of this the hard way.

These sheep think totally different than the animals I am used to.

Besides this, my wife told me a couple weeks ago that my rooster, who is getting huge, attacked her and she was never going into the pen again. He started attacking me last week, but I'm just grabbing him and putting him under my arm and by the time I let him go he's done.

A few weeks ago I was feeling like Dr. Doolittle with white doves sitting on my shoulders while the dogs howl and chickens cluck and sheep baa as I feed them but now I'm starting to feel more like Tarzan entering the wild jungle...

 

I just put down "shepherd's staff" on my Christmas list night.

I just let them out when I got home and had forgot to cover the hay so the Ram was giving me a look as I covered it up with a tarp and it was funny because I picked up a brick to hold the tarp down and his eyes got big and then I threw the brick on the corner of the tarp near him and he ducked and jumped away. So makes me think maybe a staff in my hands would be a deterrent. haha

 

Yeah, with a hit like that on me I don't see why a coyote wouldn't get some horns. If he keeps acting up I may have to leave him out of the pen at night and find out.

 

I just committed to a male Anatolian Shepard - Great Pyrenees mix. Another litter of the same mix is due any day and I might get a female to join him. 4 hour drive to get him on Saturday. This is my boy: