LGD steals day old lamb?

Can this be?

Twice in 12 hours my dog has been suspiciously close to the “lost” lamb, away from the sheep enclosure.  The first time the wool was wet in places.  And the second time the wool looked like it had been wet and dried. And stuck together as if it had been wetted with hair gel.
(Saliva?)

The first time the lamb was about 16 hours old. That was yesterday evening. Then it happened again this morning.

The dog is a 10 month old female great Pyrenees. She is fascinated with the new lambs. These are our first. She protects them from the cats that she has shown great fondness for. Is very attentive to the lambs.

She was bred 9 weeks ago, would have whelped today, but apparently she did not conceive.  I don’t know if that has anything to do with the possibility that she is carrying this very small lamb over to our house.

I have just never heard of this and I wonder if it is a known trait of guardians. I’m interested in experience and speculation. Thank you.

Never mind!  I have just answered my own question.  Saw my pup with the lamb held gently in her mouth.  I am sitting in the sheep yard as I write, observing…

The biggest problem I guess, is the lamb getting enough to eat! As the mother approached the lamb, my dog tried to protect the lamb from the mother. Luckily, I was able to observe and call her off.

It is the ewe’s first lambing. We have no other more experienced dogs around.

The lamb chooses her mother over the dog when faced with a choice of who to follow.

I guess I will need to be extra attentive for a frw days, until the lamb gets really fast at latching on and getting a meal.

For now she seems well fed.

I would imagine you have a young female that has strong maternal instincts.  After her first litter that will probably decrease.  I see it as a positive, although it could be a problem is she is over fixated.  Give her some time.

Thanks Jack.

My dog is very young.  LGDs seem to take 2-3 years to reach full maturity.  

It’s hard to remember she’s just a puppy at 10 months.

When I think of how much she (all LGDs) need to learn, it makes sense.  I imagine they have strong instincts and urges, but need experience and direction to put it all together.  When mature they do so much for us.  They are going to be making independent decisions as adults.  Where else would that ability come from but on the job training!?🤣

Personally, I think the abilities of LGDs are nothing short of miraculous!  It would be easier to train her if there were experienced LGDs around, but at least she will participate in training future individuals.

Sounds like a great LGD. I have been told that breeding female LGDs that young can be problematic for their health, but she will make a great mom one day!

I have a German Shepherd/ Border Collie mix.  She is very involved with her pigs…especially the babies. Momma pig appears to approve of her as a baby sitter.  Yes, she has been known to pick a wandering baby up by its head and carry it back to the litter.

Update, my dog, Sharkie, has not stolen the lamb again, and had a couple opportunities!

Earlier, as reported above, she was very resistant to my direction to not lift and carry the lamb off.  Kept heading back.  If she got the message, that may be enough!  And as I said, even tried to run the mama off…. Also received negative feedback for that!

John Dean, I read your post and laughed hard, spilling a out half my coffee.  

What a mental image.  Kudos to you and your irrepressible dog for making my day. AND happy to hear about no lamb-napping on your farm Thekla

Sharkie strikes again!  She had the same lamb in the same place, twice in 14 hours.

I also notice she has been carrying around a stuffed animal, and spending a lot of time with the 7 month old cat.

It got me thinking about “false pregnancies”.  There is a chapter in one of James Herriot’s books where at every stop he makes an animal is showing signs of “false pregnancy” (?delusions of motherhood?). What he describes in the chapter is a female who went through an estrous cycle and a period of time equal to the gestation time. Then that animal that did not go through pregnancy nor produce a baby behaves as if she has babies.   A sow nurses imaginary piglets, a dog is obsessed with her squeaky toy and won’t go anywhere without it and I think there’s a cow doing something like that.

Anyway, Sharky went through estrous. She successfully mated, but she did not conceive. If she had conceived, her due date was Friday three days after the kittens were born and one day after the lambs were born. I just got to thinking, possibly that had something to do with it.