11PM...wife says "Um, WHY is the coop door open?!?"

[cmjust0]

Yeah.. So, we're walking down to the barn late last night to throw a little hay to the goats.. My wife goes in the barn first with the lantern and says "Uh oh.." I can't see in there, so I'm like "what!??" She says "Why is the coop door open?"

My first thought was...that's it...they're all gone...they're all dead..

We walked over, shined the light inside, and they they were...looking up at us like, "What's up?" Right as rain.

Apparently one of the goats opened the latch, which I frankly didn't think was possible. All the goats were in the barn along with Ivan, our Sarplaninac LGD..

If not for the big goofy dog on guard...could have been really, really bad. Raccoons used to get in there and screw around with the feed sacks until Ivan came along.. Haven't seen any evidence of raccoons getting into anything since then. He could have gone in the coop himself and killed everything inside, but...well, he's kinda nervy around those flappy things. Wants no part of it.

Anyway...close call, but thank goodness for gigantic, alert dogs with no prey drive. If you don't have one...get one!

 

[gocrow77]

Good thing you have that dog! Glad noone was hurt.

 

[wyliefarms]

Glad that you noticed it and everyone was ok.

 

[Duck/GooseCRAZY]

I am definitely working on it! great dogs

 

[tiffanyh]

My goats can open lots of different latches...there amazing that way.

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

Quote:
My LGD GP puppy is still less than two months old. Maybe next year.

BTW, found out why the German Shepherd is not considered a Livestock Guardian Dog.

From http://www.canids.org/occasionalpapers/livestockguardingdog.pdf on page 108:

... crossbreeding “shepherd’s dogs” (LGDs) with German, Dutch and Belgian Shepherds has resulted in dogs which chase rather than guard livestock (Taylor 1998a,b, 2000; Nelson 1996 reviewed in Taylor 1998b).

 

[cmjust0]

It's also worth mentioning that this was, indeed, the man door that was open -- not the pop door. The big goofy dog really could have walked right in anytime he wanted. Instead, he was laying near the open door when we walked up.

Something else I found interesting was that the chicken feeder didn't appear to have been disturbed. The goats know exactly where it is, because I've had them slip around me into the coop and try to knock it down to eat all their feed.. I really don't think they'd been in there, even though they're the ones who opened it.. No chickens got out, either..

I've witnessed him playing keep away between goats which are and are not supposed to be in his barnyard, so I wouldn't put it past him to keep the chickens hemmed up and the goats out of the coop.

 

[purpletree23]

Way to go Ivan!!! A happy story does this forum good!

 

[Sitka]

whew!

 

[cmjust0]

Just look at that big sweet face... How could he not be the bestest big puppy dog in the whole wide world?

Who's the best puppy...Ivan's the best puppy...yes he is...yes he is!...who's the sweetist big puppy do...oh, sorry.