Natural History

This Caucasian Ovtcharka is a livestock guardian dog. It has bonded with the chickens, and it will protect them from predators. My golden retriever, on the other hand, is more likely to catch the chickens and bring them to me.

When we think about the behavior characteristics of working dogs, we often think of several inherited tendencies to exhibit predatory motor patterns. In virtually all working dogs, we want dogs that are very likely to exhibit predatory behavior. Thus, we are selecting for prey drive. However, in livestock guardian dogs, we are selecting for a fundamentally different animal. And that’s why, these breeds behave in ways that many people don’t understand.

For example, in retrievers we want dogs that will run out and grip an object with its mouth. We don’t want a dog that grips the object too hard, so we breed for dogs that are easily trained to grip the object with just enough force to hold onto it. Because the dogs retrieve under all sorts of weather conditions and from both the land and the water, we want really strong prey drive.  We also want dogs that at least tolerate other strange dogs, and we would be better off if they really liked meeting new dogs. The extraversion that people associate with golden and Labrador retrievers is functional behavioral conformation. Why?  Buddies  often go hunting together, bringing their dogs.  These dogs may have never met before, and the last thing you want is a big dogfight in a duck blind. Further, in a trial situation, lots of dogs are in one area, so you really don’t want a dog that cannot tolerate other dogs. You also want a dog that takes direction well and is focused very much on human body language and spoken words.

You want similar behavior in trial quality herding dogs and other bird dogs. You do want predatory behavior and prey drive, as high tolerance for strange dogs. Of course, the predatory motor patterns are different in each type, and each discpline requires its own peculiar behavior– like the outrun in a sheep dog trial.

In scent hounds, you want very strong prey drive, a tendency to use the nose to seek out prey (as well as having a good nose), and a high tolerance for other dogs.  These dogs are run in packs, and in my part of the world, dogs from different homes are put together to run as a pack.  You need dogs that are tolerant of other dogs. In most scent hound breeds, there has been a selection for the baying sound, and many breeders pride themselves on selecting for the best baying hounds. You don’t want any modifications to the predatory motor patterns. You just want a dog that will hunt.  These dogs operate independently of the handler, so you really don’t want a dog that takes direction or pays attention to the human voice or body language.

In sight hounds, you want a sprinter that has a tendency to use its eyes in its hunting behavior. Depending upon which game you are hunting, you do want dogs that tolerate other dogs, but if you are hunting coyotes or small wolves (in Central Asia), you might want dogs that might be a little dog aggressive. You want really strong prey drive with little modifications to predatory motor patterns. You want a dog whose predatoy motor patterns are very much triggered through what it sees rather than what it smells, and that is the big difference between these breeds and the scent hounds.

In catch dogs and terriers, you do want dogs with very strong prey drive. However, you want dogs that have a little bit of an edge to them.  Typically, a catch dog pack is not made up of strange dogs, so while you may want dogs that get along in a pack, they don’t have to be very tolerant of other dogs. You want the same  with the terriers. Because catch dogs will be tackling wild boar and because a terrier could be fighting an animal that could be the the same size it is, you want prey drive that is very strong, as well as very high pain tolerance. You might even want a dog that has tendency to become an adrenaline junky. These characteristics are called “gameness.”  The gamest dog I’ve ever known was a Jack Russell terrier that belonged to my grandpa. This particular dog had to be worked several days a week, or she’d start picking fights with other dogs.

Now, sled dogs aren’t selected for prey drive, but in the old days, these dogs had to have some of it. There are accounts of the natives of the Russian Far East and the North American Arctic turning their dogs loose in the summer months. The dogs were forced to fend for themselves, so they had to have predatory behavior. We also have accounts of them being used to hunt polar bears, which means they had to have very strong prey drive and maybe some gameness as well.

In every one of these different working breeds, prey drive and predatory motor patterns are required or at least exist to some degree. However, there is a notable exception.

Now, because North America was mostly settled by people from Northern and Western Europe, we do not have a tradition of livestock guardian dogs. Southern and Eastern Europeans have those traditions. The Spanish introduced their livestock guardian traditions to the territories in the New World, and the Navajo and Apache keep livestock guardian dogs (although quite unlike the big mastiff-types that are used in most of Europe).  The Northern and Western Europeans had successfully reduced wolf and bear populations to relict levels, so they had no real use for a dog that could protect the stock. Most stock dogs from those countries and their descendants in other parts of the world are herders. They move the stock through modified predatory motor patterns. If  an untrained dog of this type is left alone with the sheep, there is a good chance that the dog will kill the sheep, just like a predator.

In a livestock guardian dog, we want a dog that has almost no predator behavior. In fact, if it has any, it is not easily stimulated to show into hunting mode. When compared with the other working dogs, these animals are sedate. You don’t want a dog that gets all playful and winds up hurting the stock through its boisterousness.

You want a dog with a long critical period for socialization. Now domestic dogs have rather long “critical periods” in which they can imprint on other animals and bond to them. Most domestic dogs don’t have one that extends beyond 12 weeks, and wolves and coyotes have ones that don’t last much longer than a few days after their eyes open. In livestock guardian breeds, the critical period can be as long as 16 weeks. That gives the pup plenty of time to bond to the sheep and learn to accept the shepherd and his other dogs.

Now, unlike retrievers, other bird dogs, and most herders (except the continental shepherd dogs), these dogs develop very strong territorial behavior. In fact, they generally don’t tolerate other dogs at all.

And that’s what you want.

You want a dog that bonds with the sheep, but if it sees another dog or dog-like creature (i.e., a coyote), it will protect the sheep.

Further, you don’t want a dog with lots of energy.  A dog with lots of energy could wander from its charges, and that’s the last thing you want.

In short, breeding a livestock guardian dog means selecting for a dog that is very different from virtually all other working breeds. Most people are not accustomed to the behavior of one of these dogs, and that’s why choosing one as a pet is something that should be thought out very carefully. These dogs don’t bond very easily to new families, and one must be very sure that these dogs are chosen with deliberate consideration.

I find them very interesting dogs because they are so different from my dogs. Some fools think that the Caucasian Ovtcharka is the ancestor of the golden retriever. I can’t think of a possibly more unlikely ancestor. The two breeds are like the yen and yang of the canine world. They have nothing in common. An Ovtcharka is a very protective livestock guardian that is of quite large size. It is designed to defend its life and its charges from packs of wolves and the odd brown bear. A golden retriever wouldn’t last five minutes with these animals. It would probably try to play with the wolves. I’ve yet to see a Caucasian Ovtcharka retrieve anything, and I don’t think they are good water dogs. When the Soviets crossed the Caucasian Ovtcharka with the Newfoundland to make the Moscow retriever or Moscow water dog, they produced a dog that would enter the water. However, when it entered the water, it was more likely to bite the drowning person rather than perform a rescue.