Berger04 wrote:I had an interesing story yesterday... I unfortunately lost a goat from a very bad kidding with her kid. Very often the dogs start to eat the back of the body as soon as the animal is dead. This time I have decided to do nothing at first and a few of them have started to eat together on the body without any conflict. Then as I have many dogs I have cut the meat to give pieces to more dogs and that was still OK. I have a pregnant Pyrs bitch which was growling at the young ones and that was just that, they understood the message. Another interesting thing is about one of my lactating Pyrs bitch, she ate some meat from the body in the goat barn then she asked me to go back to her puppies which are in a separate pen and there she immediatly regurgitated 'a kind' of meat to her puppies... I have already noticed that in the past when my lactating bitches can have access to a dead body (sheep or goat) they give it back to the puppies.
Yes my girls will often eat something I give them special like tripe or beef heart, then go back and regurgitate it to the pups too.
I think too what has been said about learning what battles to fight, is so true. I learn to not freak out over every dog fight here, there are those that end quick, I stay out of and let them work it out, there are the others like the free for all threesome this AM with my two Anatolian/Maremma males against my Pyr male Peso, I had to intervene...got bit pretty bad on the hand by Pala but not his fault it was me being in the wrong place at right time. The whole fight could have been put off if I'd gone looking for Peso to put up when I took the brothers out of the sheep this am, but I got lazy. Because he wasn't around, I thought hey I can walk Pala over to his resting area for the day without a hassle, well wrong! Here comes Peso out of nowhere and the fight was on. So I do like I do I jump in there and break it up, takes guts, takes nerve, you have to wait and pick the moment to grab or use force to separate, but I got them undone, and so three sore boys spent whole day sleeping... But fights like this now do not happen here too often anymore. When bitches are in heat it is tough but we work through it. But right now with my new flock of 30 sheep and lambs, the lambs being here has got everyone on hyper guard, and so nerves are taught. But again, being aware, not being lazy (ha like I was this AM) and being on your toes, is part of owning this many dogs. And like I said before the rewards are worth the hassles and the occasional scraps.
We have a coyote litter across on the mountain, you can hear the young pups every night coming in closer with parents, they don't know yet, what my dogs will do to them. But they won't ever get anything here. And when I do hear them I am always glad my whole place is crawling, literally, with LGD's, from babies to older broke dogs. And nothing can touch a thing here, because I have so much protection, and its worth it!
