Our First Farm Dog

This is Barnard Edward Gallant (BEG). Also known as Begedy, Barns or Barney, for short. He is our 14 year old shi tzu/ bichon farm dog. I know what you’re thinking. “This is a farm dog?” I, too, have visions of a Great Pyrenees when the phrase “Farm Dog” is mentioned. I would love to have a Great Pyrenees! Alas, it’s not to be, not this year, anyway. What we have is an “indoor” farm dog.







He loves to follow me around the garden, sniffing and digging in the dirt and tracking it all in the house. He has learned to follow the basket around the garden and steal things out of it. He learned that from the new little shi tzu puppy we had for a short time. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? He loves all things from that basket: peas, corn, beans, anything. (I have to be careful not to leave it on the floor when I bring it in.) If it comes out of that basket, it’s got to be better than anything he’s ever eaten before!

Our very own Easter bunny! We have considered raising rabbits for food. This is a test...do we like rabbits? Hmmmmm, I think so.







Not a winter dog!

When he was a young dog, he was a force to be reckoned with. Well, I guess we all grow old and mellow with time. He did show some interest in the chickens when they first arrived, for about an hour. After that he acted like he had lived with them all of his life and couldn’t we please get something a little more interesting? We let the chickens out of their pen from time to time and watched him closely with them. He looks at them in the yard but then goes on his merry way. It would be way too much trouble to catch one of those and who wants one anyway?

He did have a close encounter with one of our lead, assertive hens for the first time last week. This is where the fierce farm protector instinct came in. She pecked him when he got too close, so he backed off. She was blocking the door to the front porch, so he stood and whined until one of us moved the hen out of his way.
So much for our “Livestock Guardian Dog”. Has anyone ever had a “Livestock Guardian Chicken”?