Anatolian Shepherd Dog
Club of America's
Alaturka's Kafadar of Tamoora is our resident Livestock Guardian Dog, property protector
and family companion. We have a few pygmy goats as pets and one of the goats is a
particular favorite to Kafadar. It is our baby Beavis. He is our first born baby goat and
very inquisitive. Kafadar immediately picked him to be his favorite. Beavis follows
Kafadar everywhere and when he lies under his favorite tree sure enough Beavis is there
playing with him or sucking on his ears. Beavis even lays in the holes dug by
Kafadar. Kafadar is extremely gentle with him and takes a lot of Beavis' playful
pestering. I guess a good LGD should be a baby-sitter too!
On this particular night, the goats
were out and Kafadar was in the house enjoying a cool night of air-conditioning.
About 1:00 p.m. he jumped up and started barking and whining. I got up and let him out
thinking it was time for him to go do natures calling and I went back to bed.
He raced off the front porch into the dark. I never heard anything more that
night. The next morning (Saturday) I got up to let the other dogs out and found
Kafadar laying on the front porch bleeding from his face, chest and legs. He wagged his
tail at me and I immediately knew he had to go to the vet. I never heard a whimper
from him as he painfully got up and made his way into the car to go to the vet. He
had a total of 130 stitches throughout his face, ears and nose area. Countless
number of stitches on his legs, chest and back. My husband and I were very worried
that the pig might be carrying some sort of disease so we took the dead pig with us to the
vet have him checked out.
To backtrack on this story some, after investigation of the scene we pieced together the following synopsis: Kafadar heard the goats in distress baaing and being chased around by a half starved boar. The boar had dug a hole under the fence to get in our yard and since we have electric wire running on the bottom of the fence line as well as the top of the fence, the pig got hit with a jolt from our fence coming in. In our opinion, he did not want to go back out that hole again remembering it hit him on the way in! In this case our electric fence worked against us. After being chased around by Kafadar for awhile he stopped and faced Kafadar. By this time I'll bet money Kafadar was all worked up and was mad enough to spit nails, to have this unwanted intruder chasing HIS GOATS. We figured the boar then stood his ground or charged him (not sure which since we slept through the whole incident). They fought and Kafadar took a bad beating. Kafadar was just barely a year old and this male boar had some age and size on him. However it took place, the boar was dead and Kafadar was alive! We thought a boar digging under a fence to get a baby goat was not rational behavior. Of course, we are not an authority on wild pigs!! When we took the boar to the vet for testing it was discovered that he was very old and probably a rogue living alone.
We are real proud of Kafadar and though he will most likely be permanently scarred on his face and legs, we will always think of them as his battle scars. I think that was the day he grew from puppy hood to Livestock Guardian Dog!
Article Written by Kathleen E. Mayer
Tamoora Anatolians
Note:
Kafadar won this award not because he did what he was suppose to do as a LGD, but he had enough intelligence to recognize the distress sounds of the goats, wake me however he could and go out and take care of business all alone in the dark. He was a 1 year old puppy at the time. He was hurt very badly by the boar, being torn up in the face, ears, chest, side and legs, but he never gave up. This is the kind of LGD you want out with your livestock. The kind that is capable of thinking on his own without direction from his owner, has a genuine liking for his livestock and intelligence. This is what the Anatolian Shepherd Dog is all about!
E-MAIL US
