English shepherd
Australian cattle dog
I have seen lots of dogs like that with shepherds and their flocks.
Posted on 11/28/2009 4:13:30 PM PST by missycocopuffs
Reporting from Camp Hale, Colo. - As soon as Renee Legro saw the sheep, she screamed.
The herd, 1,300 strong, has been coming for 30 years to graze in this valley on the backside of the Continental Divide. But as Colorado has become an adventure sports destination, the once-empty valley has filled with hikers, campers and mountain bikers like Legro, and she was about to tragically embody the collision of the old West with the new.
Legro, 33, screamed because she knew what came with the herd -- guard dogs. Shortly after she rolled down a hill and came upon the sheep, a dog leaped at her, locked its jaws on her hip and yanked her off her bike.
A second dog pounced as she fell. The two enormous canines, powerful enough to fend off bears, tore at her until her cries drew two campers who drove them off. The emergency-room doctor lost count of how many stitches she required.
To Legro and her husband, Steve, there was one person responsible -- Sam Robinson. One of a dwindling number of sheepherders in Colorado's mountains, Robinson, 54, turned to guard dogs a decade ago, after the state banned the use of traps to prevent mountain lions, coyotes and bears from destroying herds.
"We don't have any other option," Robinson said.
The Legros see things differently. In their years of hiking, biking and skiing the magnificent open spaces near Vail, they have fled from ranchers' dogs several times. "I cannot bring my dog up to the forest and let it run wild and attack people," said Steve Legro, 37. "Neither should anyone else."
They wanted Robinson charged with a crime.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
This reminds me of people who move close to an existing dragstrip then complain about the noise and try to get it shutdown.
To tell you the truth I knew that but it wasn’t so in the 30s 40s and 50s when I was growing up the the San Joaquin valley as the imported Basque sheep herders used... sheep dogs
Great Pyrnenees are not herding dogs. They are protection dogs. My dogs are Belgian Malinois, and this breed is a true herding dog.
Neither animal guard dogs, nor herding dogs are aggressive, unless their charges are being attacked. People have so many beliefs that just are not factual!
I have tried to explain endlessly to my sis that the reason my Belgian Malinois are not “friendly” to her lag and golden is that they are bred to be stand-offish and aloof to other dogs, for the reasons some have stated above. Other dogs can “run” the sheep, chase the chickens, etc...
Herding and protection dogs are supposed to keep varmints of any kind away. Any who were overly friendly to strangers of any kind (animal or human) were not used for breeding, as friendliness wasn’t a helpful trait.
There is a difference between a dog being aloof/stand-offish, and a dog being aggressive. An overly aggressive working dog would also be quickly culled from the bloodlines of good working dogs.
Thank you for the infomation about the differentiation.
>>Many posters here need to reread the article
I’d say you’re the one who needs to re-read the article. Did you manage to read the part about her riding into the herd screaming? If not, you should consider it carefully.
>.I put the lady’s right to access above that of the sheep herder, who has, more likely than not, hired illegal aliens to watch the herd.
That’s one helluva assumption. You know what they say about assumptions.
So basically, you didn’t read the article closely, and make a bogus assumption, while ignoring the fact that this woman took a really, really stupid action that provoked the protection training of these dogs. This is the equivalent of waving a toy gun at me “in fun”. It won’t end well.
Looks like we’re on the same page with this one.
Just made a similar comment to someone else. I had Bearded Collies for most of my life. AWESOME dogs.
And its someone elses’ fault they got hurt.
I like a lot of the ‘adventure’ sports, but am starting to shy away simply because of the smug and elitist attitudes of the crowds.
For so many it isn’t about having fun and enjoying time outside, its about being soooooo much better than everyone else. (While burning up the fossil fuels on synthetic clothing and driving all over to get there)
I cannot say - they are massive, tall and look like they could eat a small person in just a few bites. Hairy as well.
His was white. Kind of looks like a Pyrenese, but not quite as bulky.
I’ve been around a LOT of dogs, working and otherwise. German Shepherds to Labrador Retrievers. Anyone with any Common Sense instinctively knows to stop when she sees a herd of sheep in front of her.
It’s blatant stupidity (and the sheep herder needed a better lawyer) for someone to ride a bike into a herd of sheep.
The Sheep Herder needed a good publicity agent and a cracker-jack attorney to turn this thing into “city girl sissy” acts inappropriately toward “lamb chop” herd.
Unfortunately there wasn’t one of us on that jury.
STUPID woman and she’s already procreated. Dang. She’s probably a ‘greenie’ and won’t have another child. THAT is a good thing.
I dislike dumb people. They make me want to get in their faces and scream at them. “How Can You Be THAT Stupid?”
what I notice glaringly ignored by (nearly) all, is that 1) the organizers failed to inform the herders in the area, like they normally have done in the past; 2) she refused, at sunset, a "sag ride" back to the starting point and insisted upon going forward in the dusk/dark.
A screaming, careering banshee 'attacking' the unsuspecting herd in the dark bodes very ill for said banshee.
3) Since the loss of his dogs, he has also lost 26% of his herd...but the Legros feels like they are the innocent, agrieved party.
Go back to safe, sane Chi-Town, lady, and stick to walking/riding in parks; preferrably alone and after dark.
BTTT
The article says the shepherd is Peruvian. The Peruvians come here as contract labor, they are flown in on commercial flights and the sheepmen fly them back to Peru every year for a vacation and visit. It might be hard to get illegals through Customs twice a year at the airport.
Good Peruvian herders are hard to find, and some sheepmen are using Mongolians.
You know, I had a grandfather who was a shepherd and also great uncles who were. That was all they knew, they were raised to do this job. They were not illegals, although they WERE Hispanic. I do remember going into the Colorado Rockies to visit them in the summer and I don’t remember any dogs. I’m sure they were there though.
Nowadays, my best friend in Texas has sheep and who does she use to guard them? A huge white DOG, like these. The big white Grand Pyranese which will apparently do anything to protect their charges, the innocent sheep.
The herders are probably border collies.
English shepherd
Australian cattle dog
I have seen lots of dogs like that with shepherds and their flocks.
The wilderness just east of the Santa Monica Freeway in Colorado, just went to court.
Huh, you mean the California freeway near Santa Monica?
I would never support putting that into law but I have seen an ever increasing level of stupidity in the woods and fields over the last 20-30 years. Trees hacked up for no reason, fire pits loaded with garbage, roads and trails torn up for no good reason and my biggest gripe campfires left burning when obviously camp had been broken.
Squealing and screaming is NOT something they appreciate. Might as well wave a red flag in front of a bull.
>Thank you - my B I L actually herds sheep, using a set of massive Russian dogs (don’t know the proper name) - but the bloody things are as big as a pony.
Were they Morameas?<
The breed is spelled, “Maremma”. They originate in Italy.
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/maremmasheepdog.htm
The Russian dogs are probably members of the Caucasian Ovtcharka breed.
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/caucasianowtcharka.htm
You mean, after the part about it being an ORGANIZED RACE? So, because the woman got scared and screamed you think she deserved to be shredded by the dogs?
Or, the part about campers rather than the "professional Peruvian sheep herders" rescuing the screaming woman?
Btw, FP, did you read post #35?
Found an illegal ‘campsite’, a cluster of about 5 or 6 individual tent sites, on BLM property, about a mile from our former house, while hunting a few years ago. They had abandoned clothes and some camping equipment; had had open fires at the height of fire season; left an several garbage pits/piles, and and hadn't even had the decency to fill in their latrine trenches. They had also left behind a stolen (per the sheriff’s deputy I took to the site) and partially stripped car.
Some years ago, my oldest brother heard several shots near sunset, the weekend before the deer opener. Next morning, he went out to investigate, and found five dead does on the far back of his property, left to rot, just missing their hams and backstraps.
I was up in WA in '97, a summer of devastating fires, and came on a smoldering fire piled with plywood and other flammable stuff. It was minutes from igniting into a blaze. I was livid. Got out and tore it apart all the while cursing at the top of my lungs daring the culprits to come back. Figured they weren't far away, just hastily left because the knew there was a fire ban.
The ring was built with some very big river donies but I hauled each and every one away and tossed them in different parts of the creek. There was no reason not to have a fire ring there but I was so bent about it I was determined to leave no trace of fire or ring. lol
Too bad it wasn’t a mountain lion. They like to hunt at dusk.
LOL! I understand, and have seen/done similar.
I was introduced to the woods/wilds 60 years ago, as a toddler, by my Scout Master father, who had grown up with a ranching heritage. Lived mostly rural, even in SoCal, nearly all my life.
I'm a long haired old hippie now and I spent a lot of time traveling the west collecting medicinal plants. When I wanted to check out the plants on private land I searched out the farmer/rancher and asked permission. Asked if I could do anything for them while I was out there. I offered to pay them what I could for the plants. (which wouldn't have been much)
They never turned me down, never asked for compensation for the plants, never took me up on the offer of help, never needed to know how long I would be there or when I was leaving.
Best people on earth and all they ask is basic respect. They give it back too, I've never really been hassled by farm or ranch folk about being a long hair.
Lord help me, my boss's boss bought land and built on property next to us in Oregon. She came home from work one day, screamed, and jumped into the bed of her cute little toy truck, whipped out her cell phone, and called our neighbor--I was at work--to come and rescue her.
There was a rattlesnake in her yard. Flynt, about 18 then, came up to 'save her'. Mind you, she had a cute little .38 in her purse, and had been captain of her college pistol team! NO! She didn't want the snake HURT! So, Flynt proceeded to capture and sack it up, and "took it a couple of miles up a logging road to release it".
Later, he told me he had "released" it, alright; he made his extra money catching & selling them.
He also said that had she bothered asking, she would have known her land was undeveloped for a reason; rattlesnakes were attracted to it, and hibernated in the rocky creek banks; none of the rest of us had those warm rock faces.
A few years before we bought there, a guy who owned 20 acres across a BLM logging road from us, laid nearly 2 acres worth of pipes and Rainbirds, and connected them to a pump he tossed into the irrigation ditch, to which he had NO water rights. He abandoned all thought of using his 20 acres, and years later, sold it...to a drug dealer, who built on it.
That was when we finally sold and moved to SD.
An organized race that didn’t manage to inform the local shepherds about what was coming? Nor give any instructions to the riders on what to do / not do when encountering local fauna? Some “organization”.
This whole story is a boatload of Fail by the woman and the bikers.
One of our favorites is a mixed pup. His father was a Belgian Tervuren. His mother was Burnese Mountain Dog and large Malamute mix. It’s cold up here for about 8 months out of the year. He doesn’t run the goats. ...just watches them a lot and will go to them if told (no real herding, yet). He’s also strong as an ox and loves pulling loads. ;-)
“Robinson would move his herd when warned of a major event at the camp, such as a religious meeting that drew tens of thousands....when they swung by to check on the herd, being tended by a hired Peruvian shepherd. They were startled to find the area overrun with mountain bikers. Vail’s recreation department had scheduled a bike race and never informed the herders.”
He was not informed of the race or he would have moved the band.
As for the Peruvians rescuing, often it is a matter of distance in the mountains on who gets to play hero. The sheep spread out to graze, the herders takes a high point to watch, and the dogs circulate among the sheep to guard.
A few years ago, actually not far from Vail, I ran into a sheep drive. Half a dozen riders on the perimeter, pickups flagging at each end, and a pair of llamas. The lead car from the other direction was a big MB with California plates, stopped dead still. As the herd passed them and the llamas approached, the woman driver opened her window to get a better look at the llamas. One poked its’ head in the window and spit a giant glob right in her face. The hysteria and screams were delicious!
About a month ago we were deer hunting way up next to Oregon in Nevada. There was a herd of about 5,000 sheep being watched over by a Great Pyrenees. He was magnificent to watch at work. Very impressive animal.
Yep.
Now that this rancher had to get rid of his dogs, he lost 26% of his herd last year.
As I said, I lived in Vail, for ten years, and I have also ridden Camp Hale. It is an area that is part of the Vail Town mountain bike series, which is sponsored by the Vail Recreation District, not a rogue band of tattooed, body pierced, renegade, maggot infested liberals.
I am also aware of the rampant use of illegal aliens in the Vail area, and apparently, FO is too, but he applies selective logic for some reason.
We are told by Robinson that he uses “professional Peruvian sheep herders,” but curiously, the reporter never talks to the Peruvian, or verifies anything about him, and he is nowhere to be seen when the dogs are ripping a woman apart for her crime of wanting to finish a Vail Town organized bike race. Additionally, his “professional Peruvian sheepherders” were nowhere to be seen in the days leading up to the race when the course was marked out, or even the day of the race when the herd they are hired to watch began to be threatened by evil citizen predators on mountain bikes? Robinson says he didn’t know about the race, but he also says he found the race going on when he dropped by. He also said another of his dogs had bit someone five days earlier. He has also admitted to being antagonistic toward people who want to enjoy their access to public land that he uses, too. Which might explain why he said if he knew the race was going on he would have moved his herd, but he when he found the race going on he didn’t move his herd.
So according to you all, a woman who participated in a town sponsored race, got off easy, and really deserved to suffer even more serious injuries than she did, or even be killed, and if the Great Pyrenees, or Pit Bulls couldn’t do the job, mountain lions should have because “she screamed” at an inappropriate time?
At least he was found guilty, and now, thanks to his hostility towards innocent civilian mountain biker/hikers, and his incompetence in finding the race going on, that if he knew was going on he would have moved his herd, but he didn’t...now no longer uses sheep dogs and is losing sheep to predators. Guess that means he’s going to have to leave the area, or quit sheep herding?
Oh, the nerve of that evil citizen using public land, and screaming when she shouldn’t have.
What is really frightening is that people like you all probably tell other reasonable people that you are “conservative.”
She was an idiot. Your conception of what it is like in the mountains isn’t too swift either. Just the kind of person that needs a license to step off of the pavement.
The page noted that “the dog is large and naturally commands respect” - an understatement if there ever was one on the web. The coat - curly, fuzzy and thick seems to be the trade mark.
And they, as a breed, have been guarding sheep since the 1500 in Hungary. Woof!
As someone who has lived in Vail, and mountain biked Camp Hale, which is one of the races in the Vail Town mountain bike series, this is an issue of access. Personally, as citizen of a constitutional republic, I put the lady’s right to access above that of the sheep herder, who has, more likely than not, hired illegal aliens to watch the herd. My sympathy is with the woman who suffered severe injuries for the crime of riding her mountain bike, not with the sheep owner and his illegal alien herders who were no where to be seen while she was being attacked by the two Great Pyrenees.
Perhaps you should have started out by posting your last post instead of this first one that is clearly wrong and assuming. It seems as you were called on your assumptions you have tried to justify them but they were just assumptions. Had you been on this specific ride you may have more insight as to what exactly happened but it seems you weren't.
“We are told by Robinson that he uses “professional Peruvian sheep herders,” but curiously, the reporter never talks to the Peruvian, or verifies anything about him, and he is nowhere to be seen when the dogs are ripping a woman apart for her crime of wanting to finish a Vail Town organized bike race. Additionally, his “professional Peruvian sheepherders” were nowhere to be seen in the days leading up to the race when the course was marked out, or even the day of the race when the herd they are hired to watch began to be threatened by evil citizen predators on mountain bikes? Robinson says he didn’t know about the race, but he also says he found the race going on when he dropped by. He also said another of his dogs had bit someone five days earlier. He has also admitted to being antagonistic toward people who want to enjoy their access to public land that he uses, too. Which might explain why he said if he knew the race was going on he would have moved his herd, but he when he found the race going on he didn’t move his herd.”
A grazing allotment is controlled by the local National Forest or BLM office. You are allowed to graze so many animals between certain dates. It sounds like the sheepman would move his bands to accommodate local functions going on, but I would bet he doesn’t subscribe to Mountain Bike Weekly to keep up with the upcoming events. If the organizers or the local government offices would have alerted him, he would have moved out of the way, like they said he had done in the past.
When he got there, the race was going on or almost over, why move the sheep then?
All the Peruvian herders I have dealt with a fairly shy until you get to know them. Most of them prefer to deal with their boss and avoid anyone else.
As for your continued jibe of “professional Peruvian sheep herders”, they are Peruvian, they are sheepherders, and they are paid for their job. Sounds like that is exactly what they should be called. These guys grew up herding in the mountains of Peru and it is what they know. Some cheap illegal who managed to get across the border from Chihuahua doesn’t make a good herder at all.
>>near as I can tell the dog was a Komondor
I came across a reference to that breed in the last few years (perhaps here), and ended up reading up on them a good bit. Truly a neat looking breed. I’d love to meet one.
Because she screamed?
Thank you for re-posting it. I stand by it, but I admit I am surprised at the lack of compassion for another human whose only crime was she screamed, I guess.
Yes, I am questioning your faith in the criminal’s description of them as being “professional Peruvian sheep herders” here in the country legally. For some reason, these “professional Peruvian sheep herders” that you seem to have so much faith in, were nowhere to be seen in the days leading up to and of the day of the race, or to call off the dogs when the evil, violent, criminal, yuppie, stupid, girl, woman was being ravaged by the dogs. Now, Mr Robinson is losing sheep to predators because he didn’t learn a lesson from his dog biting someone five days earlier...gee, you think his “professional Peruvian sheep herders” were working for him then, too? Seems like Mr. Robinson got the kind of help he paid for...and you all think the woman is stupid?
Yes, because she screamed and ran headlong into a flock of sheep on a bicycle. Too stupid to venture beyond a landscaped back yard.
But, good natured once you are properly introduced. Certainly a working dog.
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