Good bye Shachah

We said goodbye to Shachah the other day.  We love that dog!  He has a calm, sweet temperament along with the ability to run off any dogs that came in our yard, and Lord knows what all else he kept away.  He barked quite a bit at night, especially when there was a full moon.  He is a super cool dog, so smart with a real sense of himself.

Well, you might be asking, why did we give him away then? The answer is we only have 5 acres here and he needed more to guard.  As it was, he guarded all three houses at the end of our cul-de-sac and he was damned good at it.  The problem was that only two of the houses wanted to be guarded. LOL.

This was his winter vantage point overlookning the pond and the woods to the north and sheep paddocks to the south

He was fine over the winter just guarding the ewes in the pasture out back.  But when spring came and the ground thawed, he became a Houdini that could get out of any place we put him - digging under and slipping through despite the barbed wire.  And being a Great Pyrenees/Akbash cross, he had a mind of his own, did things on his own pace.  We learned that it was best to just let him do his thing, because calling and chasing and trying to forcibly bring him home wasn't going to work.  He never stayed away too long or went very far, or did any damage, but if he had a mission in mind, he was going to do it one way or another.

He loved to sleep on his back.

Eventually we just left our gates open at night so he could guard the whole place. Many a night I would go out with the flashlight to see what he was barking at, he liked having some back up. In the morning we'd look to see where he was.  Usually we'd find him laying in front of our garage or out in the center of the cul-de-sac, guarding the whole end of the road.  He was so cool.

Shachah waiting his turn for a drink of fresh water. Ozzie the Aussie got to go first.

None of the neighbors ever actually complained to us about him, but I just didn't feel right about having a large dog running loose at night and sometimes barking incessantly.  So when Sabrina expressed an interest in getting another dog to replace her beloved Sally, I offered him to her. I had been thinking that hers would be a great home for him and it just seemed right.

She came over the other day and he took to her right away, it was just amazing. She has such a way with animals. We put him in the back seat of her truck and he rode the whole 3 hour trip to his new home without a problem.

I look forward to seeing and hearing how things go for him on Sabrina's blog.  There's a big empty spot in our hearts without our "Big Dog"and I'm scared that whatever he was barking at is going to think it has free reign now, but in the long run I think we made the right choice for him and for us.  If we ever move over to our 40 acres, I would get another LGD or two in a heartbeat.  But hopefully Sabrina won't have to chase any more bears out of her yard with him around.