Brave and Loyal: An Illustrated Celebration of Livestock Guardian Dogs by Urbigkit Cat

Author:Urbigkit, Cat [Urbigkit, Cat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2017-01-02T16:00:00+00:00

A shepherd with his flock on a rainy day in Bulgaria.

None of the countries we visited have widespread visible wild ungulate populations for wolves to prey on, as is typical in Wyoming and other areas of the American West. Where there are higher game populations, there are higher densities of wolves.

When Jim and I departed the United States, we initially traveled to Portugal, hoping to learn about the Transmontano Mastiffs we’d read about in that country. We traveled to Montesinho Natural Park, the heart of northern Portugal’s wolf country. The park is a native forest of oak and chestnut, with wild boar and roe deer, as well as about thirty Iberian wolves that are part of a larger population roaming in both Portugal and Spain. The park encompasses dozens of small villages, whose residents are small-scale farmers and herders. Unfortunately, the livestock herds already returned to home pastures for the fall and winter, and we were unable to make contact with enough experts and shepherds to be able to fairly assess the effectiveness of their native livestock protection dogs, although we did encounter a few of the dogs.

Walking the streets and roads of the natural park, we met up with our first guardian dogs, comprising two native breeds. The largest of Portugal’s livestock guardian dog breeds is the Transmontano Mastiff, still bred almost exclusively by shepherds for use as working guardians. They have a reputation of being quite reserved and docile, while not being highly aggressive. Work is being done to gain international recognition for this breed.

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