Farm Dogs

[Beekissed]

Weather is cooling, hunting has commenced! Dogs benefiting from the bounty...LOVE this time of year for the free and healthy food the dogs get to consume. Not only from the hunting, but also from butchering the excess and culled chickens.

I often manage to freeze plenty of deer scraps for later on in the winter also and even sometimes will clean out the freezer in the summer months to find a frozen ball of meat scraps to give the dogs...great on a hot day to get to gnaw on cold meat.

A time of plenty to put a good layer of warm fat on their ribs for winter.

 

[Hinotori]

Mine are getting the tuna bloodline I canned for them as well as tuna from a previous year. One jar a night between them. Fish is a dog favorite here.

 

[milkmansdaughter]

I agree, @Hinotori. When we lived there, salmon was common dog food.

 

[Beekissed]

Mine are getting the tuna bloodline I canned for them as well as tuna from a previous year. One jar a night between them. Fish is a dog favorite here.

My animals would definitely go for some of that! What a way to round out a diet!

 

[baymule]

Have to add to Parker's story. Our daughter has been out of town since Wednesday on business. She got home today, Saturday, after 6 PM. The children have missed her terribly. Our son in law brought the girls out today for our entertainment, LOL. I took the 2 year old to do the evening chores with me. We were at the portable building and I saw Trip alert. He was about to jump the fence into Pasture #1, so I called him and opened the gate. He ran to the front. Parker alerted too, but by this time, the 2 year old had walked inside the gate, next to Parker. Parker looked toward the road and growled his deep, menacing growl. He almost NEVER growls. In fact, our neighbor Robert was astonished when I told him about it, he has never heard Parker growl in the 3 years we have been here.

Trip was running up and down the front fence, barking. Parker stayed next to our grand daughter, protecting her from the threat. I even walked away to see what he would do, but he stayed with the baby, still growling. So I walked back to him, took the baby's hand and we went to see what was stirring the dogs up. A runner came by, Trip went mad, lunging at the fence, snarling and barking. Parker stayed close to us, but he ran to the front to bark, then ran back to us. Several more runners came by, all of them looked what we call, "Plumb tuckered out." LOL

Clearly, Parker wanted to run up front and bark too. But he stayed close to the 2 year old little girl, protecting her from danger. I praised and petted him, what a dog!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Good dog Parker!!

 

[Beekissed]

Oh, yes!!! What a dog!!! Intelligence, courage and loyalty to family...a wondrous combination. Imagine what would have happened if anyone tried to breech that fence?

 

[sumi]

What a wonderful dog!

 

[Beekissed]

This weekend I've got to establish winter quarters for dogs. Jake needs his house totally cleaned out and refreshed with new cedar chips and hay, his dog bed taken out and solarized, the cover washed, etc. Ben needs a hay house built for him for his winter sleeping needs.

Jake's house is built out of pallets and is attached to the back of my hoop coop. The pallets are stuffed with hay for insulation, even those above his head. The floor pallets were lined with plastic underneath and also stuffed with hay, then a 3/4 in. plywood laid over those. On top of that is his cedar chip layer, then more hay and then his memory foam dogbed. He's getting old, so he appreciates his creature comforts in the winter months. His house has a large overhung porch and a windbreaker wall to protect his entrance and the pop door entrance also...the chickens and the dog share the same porch. He also has an old towel stapled across his doorway to keep out the worst drafts.

Mid build...the back door, one I use to clean out and refresh his house.

Insulated roof...

The porch he shares with the chickens....the wall on the right of the pic was then built in to block wind from blowing into their respective doors.

His cozy winter digs....I left him a small window on that windbreak wall so he could scent any danger from that side easily.

In the summer months I close his doghouse door so the chickens won't get the bright idea of laying in there. He never uses his dog house until winter anyway.

Ben, being a LGD breed mix, doesn't like to use a dog house unless the temps drop down in the teens and below zero. He likes a good visual field and a quick escape from his bed. I started out with attaching a regular doghouse to Jake's porch but Ben rarely used it, so discarded that idea.

Then I moved to building a hay hut inside the spare chicken pen and that was a success for him...Jake sleeps with him there unless the temps get really low, then he heads to his well insulated doghouse and his memory foam bed. They both like to lounge in there on winter days, as the hay is soft and the pen breaks the wind but they can still see, hear and smell everything.

Ben's bed within a house formed by hay bales stacked inside the spare pen/coop...

Jake snoozing in the doorway of the "dog lounge" area in front of Ben's hay house...

It's a sweet life for a couple of farm dogs. They have a heated bucket waterer for winter as well, so nicely warmed drinking on the coldest of days.

 

[baymule]

Dog Heaven!