English Shepherd puppies!

Our English Shepherd Faithfull just had a litter of 12 puppies!

Mom and dad are both great with our poultry and the puppies will be raised with the chickens, ducks and geese to help teach them to be gentle around poultry. We also have a pen for them in our pasture so they can check out our cattle and horses when they are old enough to go outside.

We put quite a bit of work into our puppies to ensure they have a good start at their new homes and we are very pleased with all the homes our first litter found. They are all doing well.

If you are interested, I've written a little more about them here: http://roscommonacres.com/2012/09/twelve-english-shepherd-puppies/ They also have their own blog here: http://faithfullspuppies.blogspot.com/but there isn't as much information there, yet. You can read a little about her last litter, however, and Mouse should be updating it with pictures of each of the 12 puppies later today. Feel free to contact me with any questions!

Yes, they are actually out of the same parent stock as the collie, along with the Australian Shepherd and the border collie. Even though they're called an English Shepherd, I think they're more of an American dog. They were sort of the all around farm dog, not specifically bred for anything, for a long time. They're wonderful dogs with a bit of everything you want in a farm dog, with a bit of herding, a bit of guardian, a bit of watch dog and just a hint of hunter for chasing off those pesky vermin. But they aren't that intense about any of it so they are a little easier to manage, particularly on a small hobby farm like ours when the only herding we really need done is to take the dairy cattle to and from pasture and to take the geese to and from their run. Both of which, the animals figure out pretty quickly and it is really more a matter of opening the gates for them!

But ours have been great and have defended our flocks and even stopped an attack on one of our calves. It was injured with several bite marks, but recovered and the dogs were quite pleased with themselves for driving off the predator (we think coyotes but aren't positive). They know when things are out of place, and Faithfull has alerted me to chickens that have gotten themselves trapped in odd places.

Timmy breaks up the chicken fights and will check over the victim and give it a good kiss before leaving them to go on their way. It is so funny to watch.
 

Yeah, they are hard to find. We drove four hours for our female and lucked out with our male. He lived 6 hours away, but his breeder happened to be driving through our state on the way to drop her daughter off at college so we met her just off the interstate. They are such good dogs and learn so much just by tagging along and being your shadow all day. Last night, we had coyotes near the property and all the animals were nervous. The chickens in the henhouse were making an awful lot of noise so I opened it up just to make sure nothing had gotten in. They were fine, but my daughter's show cockerel bolted out into the night. Timmy chased it down and held it for me so I could get him back safely in the henhouse.

We ended up with seven males and five females. The parents are wonderful dogs. Mom is from a farm in IA. We drove out there to get a dog for my daughter and thought the English Shepherd was a perfect fit for her and for our family. She's been wonderful and has done well in 4H and earned her Canine Good Citizenship award. We toy with the idea of registering her under the step in program, but haven't decided, yet. Timmy is registerable, but we haven't pursued it yet. He's a young dog and still settling down and starting to learn his role here. He likes helping and is really good with the cattle. He hasn't quite caught on that he needs to work further away when helping with the poultry and he also tends to be more of a header. He can round up the ducks and geese pretty well, but then he tries to lead them into their pen but they won't pass him to go in so we sort of stall on the last step. We're getting there, though!