Nothing in Particular, WP Migration
Bailey the “Terrorist” and cute little Harmon!
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It has been 15 years since we had a puppy, mainly because we kept adopting dogs that have been abandoned in our community, and because these dogs are older, we have never easily been able to train them as a “Farm Dog”. The most recent dog we adopted, named Bailey, who we nicknamed the “Terrorist”. (It was me who called him that with Carl not appreciating it because he thought I was being mean!) Bailey chased away our goats and was always chasing the cats, not to mention all the critters on the farm were a little scared of Bailey; however, Bailey was very loving towards us (or any human). We just couldn’t train him not to chase our farm animals so we found him a home with Jason who helped install our wood boiler. Jason already had a huskie named Cooper so he thought Bailey would make a good companion for Cooper. Jason has plenty of land around his house for Bailey and Cooper to roam which is something huskies need. |
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Our adventure with Bailey started back in May when he was rescued by a few folks in our community with a broken jaw, so the folks in the community pitched in and paid for the vet bills to fix his jaw, and then they needed a home for him. We felt sorry for Bailey and decided to give him a try on the farm because we have plenty of space and we are home most of the time to provide him with plenty of attention and direction.The first week on the farm, we had Bailey in our fenced in area (4 acres) while we were hoeing when he escaped under the fence only to chase our neighbor’s horses and was kicked in the jaw once again. (His jaw was bleeding pretty badly so we took him back to the vet and discovered the jaw was not re-broken. The vet commented, “this dog has a death wish!”)
Several weeks after Bailey came to the Farm, Joe and Meagan were walking him on a leash because we were not letting him run free until he learned the farm boundaries, when we lost a couple goats to what looked like a dog attack. Had Joe and Meagan not have been walking Bailey on a leash, we would have accused Bailey of killing the goats; however, we do have wild dogs in the neighborhood so we attributed the goat deaths to the wild dogs. The goat deaths are still a mystery because the wild dogs typically don’t visit our livestock barn. Mostly domesticated animals will visit the livestock barn. The goats were freaked, and hung out in the other side of the pasture not attempting to return back to the barn, so after a couple days I lead our lead doe back and they all followed. The goats were missing Harvey our guard dog who was amazing at protecting the goats and directing the goats in abnormal circumstances. Nothing like this would have happened had Harvey been around but he died of cancer. We need another guard dog but have procrastinated in finding one because we were too busy growing vegetables.
About a month after the mysterious goat deaths, something else once again spooked the goats and all 11 of our goats disappeared. We hiked the mountains behind our home thinking that they were just spooked again and too nervous to return to the barn but we didn’t find any signs of them. After a few weeks we were certain the goats were devoured by wild animals whether it be coyotes or wild dogs, and we couldn’t bring ourselves to blaming Bailey this time. Bailey seemed to leave the goats alone, a couple times each week while processing and packing produce, Bailey would hang out with us at the barn. The goats would wonder by, almost a few yards from Bailey, and he didn’t even attempt to chase them. He would just lie near the barn and look at the goats with not much interest in chasing them. (The goats were escaping out of their fence and grazing near our packing shed.)
So the goats had been gone another month, then one Sunday we noticed that 7 had returned, which totally surprised us since we had assumed that they were dinner for some critter in the woods. We didn’t think the goats could survive in our mountains. The goats had been home at their barn for a few weeks when Joe was in the greenhouse one day and heard a commotion near the barn. He went to investigate and caught Bailey, with a goat cornered, and the rest of the goats gone. So that sneaky Bailey was terrorizing the goats when we weren’t looking!
So another month later, we found Bailey a home in Cruso, and we hope he is happy because we were sad to give him up since Bailey was loving towards us, not to mention we have never given away a dog before. It has been a couple weeks since Bailey went to his new home and would you believe that 4 of our goats returned? I wonder if the goats were in the woods looking down at the farm and sensed “safety” OR just luck of the draw? We still need a guard dog so perhaps we will look into that for a winter project.
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A farm is not a “farm” without dogs to chase away moles, groundhogs, and other rodents. We made it a promise to ourselves not to take in stray older dogs, that deep down inside, know will not work out on the farm. We knew that Bailey was not right for the farm but we felt sorry for him and took him in regardless of our “gut feelings”.One week ago we got a puppy from the animal shelter with hopes that we can train him to be a farm dog. Not sure what breed of dog Harmon is nor how big he will be but we hope big enough to hike our mountain trail and chase away rodents from the farm! |
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