Sheepmen Are Going to the Dogs

By Frederic Golden

In the great coyote war, a splendid Old World weapon

Coyotes are small (about 30 lbs.), fast, clever and notably fond of mutton chops. For years U.S. sheepmen have trapped them, shot them from airplanes, and laid out wholesale poisons. But in 1972 the Nixon Administration banned the use of poison on federal grazing lands because it kills more than just coyotes. The scattered chemicals--usually a nerve drug called Compound 1080--also felled birds, including endangered species like the bald eagle, not to mention foxes, badgers, opossums, raccoons and pet dogs.

Now coyotes are blamed for killing more than a million sheep a year, and sheepmen are clamoring for resumption of open chemical warfare. The U.S. Department of the Interior, meanwhile, has been experimenting with more specific anticoyote tactics. In one method, sheep are outfitted with a poison-filled collar; if a coyote takes a bite, it soon bites the dust. Another device, the so-called M-44, involves a spring-loaded tube covered with bait and planted in the ground. When a coyote begins tugging at the bait, the device fires a lethal dose of cyanide into its mouth. In an attempt at aversion therapy, Government-funded scientists have even scattered chunks of lamb meat dosed with an emetic. Any coyote who samples the stuff quickly becomes ill. The object: to make coyotes feel that sheep are sickening. All these things have proved too inefficient or too costly to be much help. Is there, then, any safe, cheap and humane way of containing coyotes? Perhaps, say biologists. U.S. sheepmen have traditionally allowed sheep to roam their ranges, fenced in but otherwise untended by shepherds or dogs. Now they are being urged simply to bring back the faithful sheep dogs that have been used in Europe and Asia for centuries.

Not just any sheep dog will do. Such familiar breeds as the collie and German shepherd are herding dogs. They will drive a flock from place to place and keep sheep from straying. But such dogs need constant supervision. What is required is a different kind of canine, guarding dogs that will patiently watch over a flock for weeks at a time, even in a lonely pasture. A rancher need only appear occasionally to leave food. Usually large (up to 135 lbs.) and slow to anger, the animals stir to action only when their charges are threatened. They live with the flock almost as if they were sheep themselves.

One favorite breed, the Hungarian Komondor, is a big, lovable-looking beast as shaggy as a sheep. Komondors have been protecting flocks from wolves for centuries in Hungary. Now they are standing guard over American sheep in more than two dozen states from the Rockies to New England. Other Old World breeds are beginning to appear on U.S. ranches as well: the Anatolian shepherd; the Great Pyrenees from the mountains between France and Spain; the Italian Maremma; the Yugoslavian shepherd of Shar Planinetz; and the Kuvasz, a short-haired Hungarian cousin of the Komondor.

Until a few years ago, these animals were virtually unheard of in the U.S. But thanks to new importing and breeding programs, guarding dogs, which cost $300 to $1,000 apiece, are being inexpensively leased to any sheep farmer willing to try them. Almost at once sheep losses have been sharply cut, surprising even skeptical ranchers. "Ninety percent rate the dogs as good to excellent," says Wildlife Biologist Jeffrey Green, who has been raising Komondors and Great Pyrenees at the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station at Dubois, Idaho. He adds: "These dogs are three times as big as coyotes. One on one, the dog always wins. But usually the coyote just turns tail. Many won't even approach the flock because of the dog's scent."

Not all dogs live up to expectations, say Biologists Ray and Lorna Coppinger, who have raised hundreds of animals at Hampshire College's New England Farm Center in Amherst, Mass. A couple of dogs have wandered off into the hills and disappeared. Others have been killed by traffic, electric wires or misplaced M-44s. Some dogs are naturally boisterous and need special handling; a few have turned out to be sheep killers. To work properly, guarding dogs must be introduced to sheep as pups so that by maturity they are totally at ease with the flock--and vice versa. When a predator approaches, the sheep tend to converge behind the dog. "They recognize him as a security blanket," says Zoologist Jack McGrew of Colorado State University, where Komondors have been tested for three years. Ewes in labor sometimes seek out the protection of the dog. Usually this trust is more than reciprocated. Dogs have been known to lick the newborn lambs and even cuddle them through the night to protect them from the cold.

--By Frederic Golden. Reported by Joseph Pitcher/Los Angeles

With reporting by Joseph Pitcher

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