Living with Lions Webinar - Livestock Guardian Dogs: An Ancient Solution to Modern Wildlife Conflicts

Most people won’t ever see a mountain lion in person, and most people won’t work with these unique dogs either, but everyone can benefit from understanding more about them. As planned grazing operations move closer into urban areas, such as goats clearing brush in fire prone freeway margins in California, more and more of us will experience the moment of cognitive dissonance that comes when a member of the flock suddenly starts to bark!

A few things you (probably) didn’t know about Livestock Guardian Dogs:

• Livestock Guardian Dog breeds are considered “primitive” and come with unique skills and challenges in the modern world.
• Great Pyrenees dogs have an extra set of toes, called dewclaws.
• A Livestock Guardian Dog may consider their territory to be multiple square miles, making containing them sometimes a difficult proposition.
• It may take three years or more before a Guardian Dog can work effectively in the field unsupervised.
• Livestock Guardian Dogs are a family of breeds, NOT a description of a role any dog can do. Other dog breeds, or mixes cannot reliably be expected to perform as a Livestock Guardian.
• Livestock Guardian Dogs bark- a lot. Territorial barking alerts wildlife to keep their distance, keeping livestock and mountain lions both safe. Laws throughout the US protect the right of these dogs to work in some places, but in others they are subject to barking dog laws.
• There are many harmful myths in the US about Livestock Guardian Dogs, including some advocating for raising them without human contact. These dogs have always been treated as part of traditional pastoralist families.

Come learn more about these issues and many others in our webinar!

About the Presenter

Gowan Batist is Coexistence Programs Manager at the Mountain Lion Foundation. Gowan is a regenerative sheep rancher, hand-shearer, wool spinner, writer and dog enthusiast who grew up outdoors with wildlife in Northern California and is committed to fostering a land stewardship ethic that increases and preserves biodiversity for future generations.

A co-owner of Fortunate Farms on the Mendocino Coast and member of the Board of Directors of CAFF, Gowan is deeply invested in facilitating positive interactions between humans, agriculture and wildlife. They have a long history of engagement and education, including receiving recognition for her work from California Farmer’s Guild, American Farmland Trust, Americorps NCCC, and the Sustainable North Coast Award from the office of Congressman Jared Huffman.