I have a wonderful livestock guardian dog (
LGD), Wilson. He is a Pyrenees-Akbash, and has been such an ideal friend and support in our
permaculture journey that my wife and I would like to breed him. I think it would be a shame not to. We would want pick of the litter. We are open about the female/bitch's breed(s), but it would have to be a proven LGD with a good temperament, and large
enough to safely have his puppies. A bit more about Wilson:
Wilson aka "Willie" aka "The Sugarbear"
Breed: Great Pyrenees x Akbash...Wilson is an F2 cross, meaning both his parents were the cross of purebred Great Pyrenees with a purebred Akbash, which is a white subset of Anatolian Shepherd. Both these are ancient lineages of livestock guardian dog, with Pyrenees being a
landrace bred over millennia by the Basque people, and Anatolian being the ancient Roman word for the peninsula now referred to as Turkey. These ancient
landrace breeds were not inbred the way newer breeds have been, and have better health because of it. The cross of two landraces can also lead to hybrid vigor, which Wilson certainly seems to have!
- His dam/father is a Great Pyrenees x Akbash, from Kennewick, WA, and looks more like polar bear than any dog I've ever seen. His bitch/mother, a Great Pyrenees x Akbash from Redding, CA, is the prettiest dog I have ever seen. We adopted/purchased Wilson from a working ranch/farm in Selma, Oregon.
Size: 120-125lbs (depending on season); 32" at the shoulder...along the lines of his breeds, he also has more of a wolf-proportioned head than a standard domestic dog's, another consideration for a potential female and her safety in giving birth
Color: All white
Disposition: A great all around livestock or human guardian dog. He has worked with
chickens and ducks without harming them, and treed bears. He is also intuitively protective of anything we care about, including my wife and our cat. He has adapted well to times when he has been more of a pet, or travelled with us, without losing his willingness (and preference) to be out protecting his animals/territory. He has been an excellent backpacking and cross-country ski companion as well. Wilson is also one beautiful, charming fella, and has become a bit of a celebrity in our area from parties at our place, accompanying us on hikes, and his help repelling
deer and putting the fear of dog in gophers at the
local Crescent
City Food Forest that I worked on starting. He is very popular with the females, which has
led to him "knowing what to do" in the stud department, from apparently very willing but fixed females that we did not realize were put in fenced areas with him at friend's places. He is an alpha though as well, and especially fixed males seem to be aggravated by his being intact. Even when attacked unprovoked, Wilson has always shown restraint in dealing with them and has been able to subdue the attacker without harming them. He generally flips them on their back and barks thunder into their skull. It would work on me too, but he hasn't tried! He has never shown aggression to a person.
Wilson has been integral to most of the successful
permaculture projects I have taken part in, and those where I couldn't utilize his help have suffered for it with herbivory, predation, and theft. Considering how much better my
trees and livestock have grown with his protection, I would bet he is way ahead of me in terms of the ratio of
carbon he has helped put in the ground versus that which his is used/burned.
Wilson's only downsides are the standards for his breed(s)--obliviousness to vehicles being dangerous--willfulness to protect his territory from invaders despite my commands to come to me--ability to jump a 6ft
fence or dig an 8ft tunnel to escape, if he wants--barking loudly and frequently (that is a major part of his job)--loneliness when without other mammals to protect. Anyone we find to adopt the pups
should be aware of this and prepared with a good fenced in area and a job for them to do. I would also insist on as much assurance as I could hope for of those who adopt being decent people who treat their animals well. I have some prospects line up already
Wilson is 8yrs old now (late 2022), so I likely should have been more proactive about it sooner, but he is still very healthy and spry. He has had virtually no health problems. We had a few near misses with the heat-timing of potential females being wrong for travel out to Wilson's place here in beautiful but remote Redwood Country in NW California (nearest town is Hiouchi, CA). If you have a female you think would be a good match, PM me and we can work something out. Breeding works best if they have the better part of a week and are in the male's territory, so while we are at the corner of nowhere out here, it is also just about the most beautiful place on Earth with many other good reasons for the trip (the worlds' tallest trees, in my opinion the most beautiful river, an epic stretch of the Pacific Coast, and the extremely botanically diverse Siskiyou mountains are all nearby). If you'd like, we have 25acres on which you could camp or use our tiny guest house while you stay. There are also many great VRBO's with views of those destinations, and we have an acre well fenced to keep them safely supervised. We are not looking to make any money out of this, just to pass along Wilson's wonderful genes.
•If anyone has any concerns about dog breeding when so many dogs need homes, please know Livestock Guardian Dogs have proven themselves to be beneficial to many other living things, and will likely be crucial to reintroducing wolves and other predators successfully in their natural historic ranges now occupied by livestock. We also have an adopted dog that Wilson loves and protects as well. I also hope this posting of stud dog's availability is within the permies regulations, I couldn't find anything prohibiting it. (I have copied and pasted this post to my computer for posting elsewhere if necessary, so no worries if you have to delete it.)
Now for the obligatory pup-pics, and some of the scenery you could see while Willie and your female do their thing:
6
