Dogs saved sheep while owners fled fire
Specially bred guardian canines wouldn’t abandon charges during fire evacuation
After watching the smoke from the B.C. Interior’s epic fires from a distance all day, sheep farmers Lorne and Lynn Landry one night decided quickly to evacuate their ranch near 100 Mile House.
The flames had reached the top of the ridge not far from their property on Tad Lake, and once the sun started to go down, the water bombers stopped dousing the fire.
“Bammo, the fire just started scooting down the hill and all the neighbours phoned each other” and the Landrys decided to leave, said Lorne Landry.
They scooped up their four border collies, but had to leave behind a handful of cattle, the barn cat, 90 sheep and the two “livestock guardian dogs,” Tad and Sophie. The Maremma Sheepdogs, which have been bred over the centuries to do one thing and one thing only, guard sheep from predators, wouldn’t abandon their charges, and the Landrys knew they couldn’t.
“If we took the dogs, we would lose sheep,” said Landry.
That was July 6, and the couple wouldn’t be able to return for another 20 days, except briefly to open the gates to allow the flock to get to water.
They left some large bags of dog food and learned the SPCA and another animal-welfare group would feed them.
The Landrys had to trust the dogs and the sheep would be OK, amid the buzzing helicopters, constant smoke and flames threatening the ranch and all the animals.
“We actually had no idea of how bad it would be,” he said.
Maremmas don’t herd — that’s what the collies are for — they live among the sheep, urine- and feces-marking a perimeter around the flock to keep predators at bay.
“This area is crawling with coyotes and bears,” he said.
The dogs have thick shaggy white coats and the males grow to 100 pounds, fitting right in with the lambs and ewes.
“The dogs actually follow the sheep, the sheep don’t follow the dogs,” said Landry.
The Maremma Sheepdog Club of America calls the breed “majestic, lively, sturdy, distinguished and intelligent. Courageous without being aggressive.”
Like other livestock-guarding breeds, they have been “selected to take responsibility and to make their own decisions in the absence of a master,” said the club’s website.
Tad, 6, and Sophie, 12, must have done just that.When the Landrys returned July 25 they were relieved to see their ranch had survived (but saddened that their neighbours’ houses on either side were burnt to the ground).
They had lost only one sheep, an older ewe, and the worst was the sheep and the dogs were covered with ash and the usually loving and friendly dogs were a little tentative around their masters at first.
The Landrys lost some pasture and the fence along the back of the property, and they know it would have been a lot worse without the guardian dogs.