Our Guard Dogs

We would be remiss if we did not give our awesome livestock guard dog, Lilly, the credit she deserves as defender of the farm.

Lilly is a Great Pyrenees, and we were lucky enough to get her when she was a puppy from our friends at Shenandoah Seasonal Farm.  Long years of selective breeding have accentuated the protective instinct in livestock guard dogs, while selecting away from the normal dog urge to chase small defenseless creatures.  As a result, LGDs are fantastic farm guard dogs, coupling a complete lack of aggression toward livestock with a strong desire to protect their territory.  LGDs are very friendly to human strangers, however, provided they feel properly introduced.

Lilly’s home base is our laying hen field, as the layers are the most vulnerable to predation, but she likes to ride along on most farm chores, and she has adopted several of our neighbors as well.

Lilly is our third LGD, preceded by Patou (pronounced “pah-too”) and Meryl (pictured below). We feel pretty fortunate to get to work with these sweet, beautiful, hard working dogs!