Saturday, November 11, 2017

The joys of farm dogs!

I love dogs!
Top two favorite animals, may even be #1.
I had my first dog when I was 2 and haven't gone for long without one in my life.
I could regale you with tales of all the wonderful dogs my family has owned, but I will save that for another time, right now I want to tell you about our current loves.

Rye is a newcomer to the farm, he has been with us about a year. 
He came to us as a birthday gift for my grandmother, at a year and a half old he had never seen a cat or cow before. 
His first few hours with us were shaky ones. When sitting on the porch with Super Farmer and my Grandmother, Rye slipped and fell off the porch.
 (I should add that Rye is a BIG dog, we are talking 126 lbs here)
well, Rey slipped off the porch in the rain, he hit the electric fence in the fall, and he panicked understandably. 
As my husband tried to help him back onto the porch the cat attacked Rye. 
The poor pup shook for a good half an hour. 
My husband brought him inside and Grandmother feed him dog cookies until he calmed down. 
Now that was not a good way for poor Rye to learn about the fence or cats, but life is like that on the farm, sometimes you get thrown into the deep end.

Poor Rye still hasn't forgiven sweetie the cat, he associates that pain of the electric fence with sweetie the cat.
 A few weeks of barking at the bovines, unsure of what they were.
He tried to get the pigs to play thinking that they were some sort of odd hairless dog.
Every once in awhile he bounds after the chickens but has settled in well.

Our dog Jax, is around 3 and has been with us for two years.
He is 50lbs of a great dog!
He goes everywhere with us, to the point that when we recently had to leave him home when attending an agricultural conference, we were surprised the next day.
He had so much spunk he was outrunning the ATV!
 It made us realize what a handful he could possibly be in a different living situation. 

Farm dogs get tons of exercise, we are outside working on our sugar woods or baling hay or fixing fences almost every day and the dogs are always with us. 
They run and jump and chase squirrels and have a wonderful time. 
 He is a retriever and full of energy, very smart and inquisitive it makes me wonder if he would be a different dog under a different living condition.

There's no doubt in my mind that there is a little pug on someone's sofa snuggly warm somewhere and he is thrilled to be there and if you put him down on the farm he would probably be overwhelmed and miserable, but not our dogs!
 Farm dogs jobs differ from, breed, size, and personality.
 As a general rule having a dog running around your farm is just a wonderful deterrent to Predators that would be a problem to farmers.

Farm dogs have a wonderful life there are all sorts of smells and interesting things to find, dig up and piles of Goo to roll in, grossing there humans out.
 We love our families three canines as much as a member of the family. 
Be it the 126 pound Rye the 50-pound Jaxs or the 6-pound Pos, we love them all!
 I don't think our dogs would trade the life they have for anything else. I'm very proud that they are well-trained, healthy and happy. 
It fills my heart with joy just have them around. 



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