Crocket’s Last Stop

It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen in my many years of rescue. A 6-month-old Anatolian Shepherd locked in a small, mud laden kennel with no water or food bowls and just the shambles of a plastic dog house for shelter from the elements. There was not even the hint of dust from straw or any kind of bedding that had ever helped keep him warm on that sleeting January morning.

He was already a very big boy with very big paws. But he had, perhaps the saddest, most haunted eyes I’d seen for a very long time. At just 6-months-old.

My husband and I had answered an ad for a “breeding” pair of working Anatolian Shepherds. Working meant they had been brought up with livestock and working parents and would be well-versed in protecting livestock.

Except this big boy, named Crocket, had not been living with or near livestock for quite some time. As I looked at him through tears I tried to hide from his owner jailer, Crocket strained to look past me to see the livestock he longed to protect and interact with living acres away from him.

He had been born and was raised in his young puppyhood to be one with his charges, to live alongside with and if necessary to die protecting them. Instead, he somehow found the will to live for 4 months in a prison so cold and cruel and void of any attention or basic necessities it should have broken his spirit and his heart. The fact that it hadn’t told me all I needed to know about him.

The 6-month-old female was in a somewhat better situation because she had been made into a pet, learning tricks from the many young children in the household. She was to be bred very soon — at the age of just 6 months. The owners had to get their money’s worth, after all.

I kept my disgust to myself as I have learned to do in rescue. Make pleasant conversation, get the animals loaded up and get out of Dodge. Don’t look back. Try and repair the damage done by those who should’ve never had access to animals in the first place.

We paid full price for these 2 dear dogs, knowing we were likely their best hope of a good life — also knowing they were likely ruined from being true (LGD’s) Livestock Guard Dogs because they’d spent their formative months either in a kennel jail or learning tricks.

We needed young guards for our sheep flock to help our older dogs, but these 2 dogs needed someone to give them a good life. And it wasn’t the 1st time we’d gone to look at “working” LGD’s only to end up rescuing dogs ruined for guarding instead.

Neither of these 2 sweethearts could be salvaged as LGD’s, even though I’d tried every trick in the book I’d used in the 16 years I’d been privileged to work alongside LGD’s. The female was spayed and we found her the best pet home ever where her joy is bringing joy to her family. Her presence there has mended a heart broken by the loss of another beloved dog.

Crocket has been a work in progress but 2 years later he has found his place and is comfortable with his “job” here as are we. We love him and he loves us.

Though he did not work out as a livestock guard, his extreme protectiveness of all that surrounds him — likely born from having nothing of his own for so long — makes him a great pasture “perimeter” guard that affords him a huge paddock and place to run and “protect”. His large160 pound first responder presence in the pasture gives pause to any predator that may even begin to foolishly think about breaching the pasture fence.

Until the last 6 months or so Crocket has chosen not to interact with any of our other LGD’s because of his food aggression and other issues. Until the Great Pyrenees/Maremma pups we added for flock protection started to invade his territory by climbing through pasture gates to reach him. Crocket is the alpha and the pups respect that. He still has enough puppy left in him to joyfully run and play and roll around on the ground with the pups.

Though he’s not doing the job we bought him for we don’t mind at all, and I wouldn’t give him up for the world. And as I write this tears are forming in my eyes thinking of what could have been for Crocket, how many homes or stops along the way he could have had if we hadn’t come along at just the right time. What he would have had to go through. What we would have missed out on.

And I’m more than just thankful Crocket’s life is happy and full of love and acceptance and that his last stop is here on the farm with us.

Jackie Deems copyright 2021