English Shepherd as a Homestead Dog

It is very hard to imagine my life without Burley in it now. When he joined my home at 11 weeks old, he fit in right from the start. I'd had a very close doggy companion years ago, as well as showing and breeding several Labradors. But after my last one passed, life circumstances related to work and housing did not permit having a dog in my life for years. Finally my situation changed, thanks in no small part to the move to my tiny house, to allow that possibility again. Separately, life had left me with something of a hole in my heart, and it seemed like a good time for a dog to join the home. After a sad six month attempt to rescue a senior dog (Grizzly for those who were following at the time and remember her) who'd been abandoned in a shelter for several years. Who I discovered in addition to the know extreme shyness, also had severe aggression towards both other humans and dogs as well as separation anxiety issues that prevented either being able to take her along anywhere or leave her at home. I was doubting my ability to keep a dog. Despite having a good bit of experience with dogs in the past, and working with several trainers with her, that combination made her continuing to live with me impossible. Though she and I had grown close and not being able to keep her was heartbreaking. This all left me feeling like a pretty total failure at life in general.

Knowing I wasn't really interested in another Labrador, and not sure how many of her problems were related to breed/breeding (looked like some kind of Chow/Lab mix but no one knew for sure), life experiences, past abuse, etc. as little of her history was know, I spent months researching what breed would have the best chance of fitting well into my life. For those who object to intentionally well bred and carefully raised dogs, I'll drop this thought in here, which I heartily agree with, and leave it at that.

In reading about many and various dogs, I first encountered the English Shepherd breed in the blog of another small homesteader who raved about them being the perfect dogs for their homestead. (That's incidentally part of the inspiration for writing this post, to pass it on to others as I'm very thankful for that blog of theirs, and... I don't even remember what the blog was.) After reading and watching everything I could get my hands on about the breed, I was pretty sure they would be a generally good fit for everything I do. They are fascinating and nearly lost like many other heirloom and heritage breeds, seeds, and skills these days. Descendants of ancient dogs let behind in Britain by the retreating Romans and selected for all around working ability, willingness to please their people, and brains, it would be a shame if these special dogs were totally lost. If you want to check out some more general breed info and history check out these resources. The first one is the best description of the breed overall that I have ever read. 

https://smallfarmersjournal.com/the-english-shepherd-and-the-diversified-small-farm/
https://highlandglennranch.com/english-shepherds/breed-history/
https://www.englishshepherds.net/breedinfo.html

https://roughandtumblefarmhouse.com/english-shepherd-farm-and-family-dog/

https://www.englishshepherds.net/articles/esare.html
https://www.englishshepherds.net/faq.html

Now of course, breed traits do tend to be quite strong, but every dog is an individual and there is never any guarantee of the characteristics of a single puppy. From here on in, this post is going to be about Burley more specifically. I started searching for breeders. While natural rearing and many other aspects of nutrition and health were not something I had been aware of with my dogs when I was younger, having learned volumes about my own health in the intervening years strongly motivated me to change my thinking on how all those things relate to dogs as well. So when my search turned up Highland's Glenn, I really liked everything I read.

Burley's father with their sheep. Photo credit Highlands Glenn

They have a little off grid homestead in Washington state where their dogs are active working members of everything they do. Their website starts out with "There are many facets to the ranch- from dogs to dairy goats. Foremost we are committed to the stewardship of this land, being sustainable, and conservation of heritage breeds. We work together with our dogs, livestock, and gardens to provide for ourselves and share the bounty with others." They have chickens, ducks, rabbits, goats, and sheep as well as their dogs. Find them here - https://highlandglennranch.com/english-shepherds/

Burley's parents. Photo credits Highlands Glenn

Several months latter, I was very excited to hear that Burley's litter was born and to get to see the first puppy photos!

Burley in the middle of his siblings. Photo credit Highlands Glenn 

Burley and litter mate playing with part of their puppy experience box. Photo credit Highlands Glenn 

Watching them each grow and change a bit every week thought the weekly Pupdates emailed to us was fascinating. Every week as the puppies were growing, they also sent out homework for all of us prospective puppy parents to read. While most of the reading homework sent each week was not new to me having happily raised puppies in the past, it's all excellent info. And there was a lot of it! I'm a fast reader and it covered many hours of reading most weeks. I highly recommend most of the literature to anyone wanting to raise a dog no matter where that dog or puppy came from.

 As the puppies got older, waiting for the results of matching their personalities and traits to each of our waiting homes was a bit nerve wracking. In the past, I'd always done my own puppy selection so leaving that all up to someone else was a bit stressful for me. I have to say the Beers do an excellent job of this and I would still be excited, but not stressed in the future if I were ever waiting for another puppy.

A break at a little pull out on the roadside on our trip home.

11 weeks after they were born, a friend joined me for the more than 10 hour each way drive to pick up my new companion. Heading home after meeting Tom and Krystal to pick him up, including an overnight spent sleeping in the van, Burley was great the whole way. Only winning once in the night when he needed to pee. Otherwise he never cried at all which I was fully expecting with a new puppy away from his mother and litter mates for the first time. I think that being able to stay with his parents and siblings till 11 weeks old, rather than 7 or 8 weeks as many breeders do, really made a huge difference in his mental and emotional maturity in adjusting to a new home. Though I was a bit sad to miss a few weeks of those really little baby puppy moments, I think it's well worth it.

Burley did get car sick every single time we drove a mile or more for the first few months. And we drove a few miles every day as he's always accompanied everything I do and most of my jobs are only a few miles from our home so there was no lack of opportunities for him to get used to vehicle travel. Even on a totally empty stomach he'd still heave, poor guy. As a child who was frequently motion sick myself, I felt bad for him and he always looked so sad every time he threw up. I learned that those puppy pee pads make excellent crate liners that can be neatly rolled up in a bag to toss once a puppy has puked, so we went through a bunch of them. And one day, that just stopped, and he's been fine with vehicle travel ever since.

House training was super simple. Probably partially because we live such in a tiny house so it's a bit like permanent crate training and he literally can't be out of my sight. Our whole home is only 160ish square feet and he never had a single accident here. When very young, he did have one each at two different friend's houses, but in all fairness, they were in parts of the house much further from the main living area than he normally has to go outside to get to his chosen potty location at the far edge of the woods around our clearing. I'm sure in his little puppy head and given his normal living situation, he thought "surely this can't still be the house over here!" We've also had no issues with other common puppy problems. He never chewed on anything other than his bones and antlers, never messed with or destroyed anything in the house, never gotten into garbage, or tried to take food of the counter. I'm guessing partially because he's always had so many fun activities outdoors to keep him busy, real interesting to dogs things to chew, and such good food to eat that there was never any motivation to try any of those shenanigans.

A bit about his traits. I've never seen a strong herding drive in him, but he's also had no opportunity in our lives to herd anything.  He does not nip heels or try to herd people. We do live in the woods surrounded by lots of wildlife of all sizes. No moose, elk, deer chasing of any kind has been a rule enforced from day one as wildlife harassing can get a dog shot here, and moose will kill dogs. He's been great with this and will stand calmly beside me while watching a bull moose cross the trail a few dozen yards in front of us. Horse, cow, and mule chasing are off limits for similar reasons though the one time a somewhat bratty and bullying horse tried to charge toward me, Burley went right at him, turning him and running him to the far side of the pasture with no problem. Otherwise he walks through pastures calmly but very alert at my side. As we hope to have our own poultry in the future, chasing ducks and grouse, which look just like chickens, is also off limits and he's good with this. Large birds in the sky are another thing. From a tiny little baby, he's patrolled the sky and any magpie, raven, hawk, eagle, etc is not allowed to cross our air space. I've never discouraged this at all, and am sure he would protect a flock if we had one from any raptor predation. He has an overdrive gear in his running reserved just for running those big birds out of the area, and man he is fast! If he could just fly, I am sure he would tackle them in the air. He has a strong rodent hunting drive and hunts mice and voles with proficiency as well as keeping the squirrels all in the trees.

Burley hunts rodents under the snow much like a fox.

Calmly watching several moose directly outside the window.

Keeping the squirrels where they belong up in the trees!

He, like most ES, has a lot of personality loves his people, and can be a little goof ball too!

Playing patti-cake.

Rolling in clover.

Burley's lip get's stuck on his tooth making him look snarly at times when he's not at all. 

His ridiculously long tongue hanging out when he's panting.

Napping on rocks.

He does have a very strong retrieving drive. When he was really little, he seemed to have no interest in chasing or fetching things. But a couple months later, decided it's one of his favorite activities. He doesn't seem to have any stopping point when chasing down and bringing back sticks, balls, or disks, and will keep going unless I hide or "loose" the thing he's retrieving to make him quit and catch his breath and get a drink. Even when I am working in the garden or splitting wood, he'll find or make his own fetching stick and repeatedly drop it on my feet or hands begging for me to take a break and throw it for him. His preferred method is skimming over the ground and then neatly snagging the item out of the air inches before it hits the earth. On this note, he really enjoys "finding" games. Like if I tell him to sit and stay and then go hide his stick or whatever where he can't see it. Once released, he'll always sniff it out eventually, casting back and forth. If he thinks he can't find it and comes back to me for help, I just have to shrug with my hands in the air and he'll turn around and keep searching. I think if I spent any more time teaching a skill related to nose skills or search and rescue, he would excel. With no training at all he has done things like track a mountain lion right to where it was treed several times now. He'll run down any track I point to and tell him to follow till we find the thing or I call him off.

Burley is a very talkative dog. Not a lot of barking, which he mostly reserves for strangers pulling in the drive, a very rare occurrence where we live, big birds flying over, or anything that startles him. Three times he's woken me in the night with a volley of aggressive barking. Each time was to tell me about something on our porch. A bear, a fox, and a porcupine. This I'm totally fine with this as all of those things just traveling through our yard as night bring no alert and happens all the time. Scaring them off the porch is great however. Especially as with our tiny house, something on the porch is very very close to us. And he has unique barks for various animals. I know just by the sound if he's smelled a fox or if it is a mountain lion instead. But most of his talking is with a variety of other sounds. Very easily understood as he'll mutter in disgust when he doesn't want to do something, groan in protest at having to stay when he wants to run, ask to go out with a breathy question sound, and so on. And he has a master pouty face when told he needs to "stay" for a bit when he doesn't want to. His expression usually makes me want to laugh. 

He is both an excellent watch and guard dog, and I am sure he would try to protect me with his life if he thought necessary. Nothing happens anywhere within his sight, hearing, or smell without him being very aware of it. And he's very alert to any changes in what is normal, like when horses came back from their winter feed lot to enjoy the summer pasture, it took him a while to decide this new state of affairs was acceptable and they were allowed to be there. He is not automatically trusting of new people. Greeting strangers from a bit of a distance at full alert until I've assured him that the person is ok. And even then he'll hang back for a bit as he makes his own judgment. People he knows however, get unlimited affection and he's had to work on being patient enough to let them get out of their car before wiggling his whole body into their arms and covering them with kisses. His reactions to other dogs are similar. Dogs he knows are all friends. While new ones are always suspicious and he's always the dominant dog in any interaction. While I've made an effort to have him meet both strange dogs and people, our lifestyle and location mean that's not a frequent occurrence. Centuries of selecting dogs who would look out for their people and home and be alert for anything out of place is obvious in his natural tendencies. 

Training has been super simple overall as he's so intelligent and wants to please, that all I have to do is figure out how to show him what I want, and he gets it right away. ES are very biddable and truly want their people to be happy with them. He's not a food motivated dog at all, so that was very different for me as every other dog I've had was. I've almost never gotten him to eat a "treat" of any kind. Commercial, freeze dried, home made, etc. He is very praise and affection motivated though so that's been no problem. Though he is almost never on a leash, he can walk on one if needed. He's had a few fears that he's worked through, and one that he hasn't. Though due to our lifestyle and location, he's encountered many many things the average domestic dog is never aware of with no issues at all. He knows unusual commands like "timber" when we are wood cutting which means get under the nearest vehicle as no one is ever going to drop a tree on one of them.  

 When first encountering water, he was sure he couldn't walk through the few inch deep trickle despite having just seen me, a friend, and another dog do just that. He sat on the far edge and bawled like he was being abandoned forever. I had to go back, pick him up, carry him part way across, and set him down in the water so he had no option but to walk to one side of the other. He ran through and by the time we were coming back along the same trail, he wadded right on in as if he'd never been scared of anything like that. This same pattern has repeated with a few things. Swimming was very scary, till after much coaxing, I tossed him in a few times and he suddenly looked around and decided this is fun and not scary after all! Now he loves to swim. Crossing holes or open gaps was another very scary thing at first. The open grating outside most doors in the area that allows snow to fall through, he's still suspicious of. Though he'll now jump over them. When backpacking this summer, we learned he has a similar issue with crossing boulder fields that require jumping from rock to rock (boulder in the Rockies meaning anything from a chair to a bus sized rock scattered over a slope) with open air between. While he otherwise loves clambering over rocks in general, this was another fear point I initially had to carry him part way through after he sat down and bawled loudly enough for the entire mountain range to hear, about being "abandoned." Since then we've backpacked across lots of boulder fields with no hesitation at all. The only fear he hasn't worked through yet is gunshots. Despite having been around them his entire life, as they are a regular part of ranch and mountain life, and you can regularly hear other hunters and target shooters in the mountains from our house, he's still fearful of them. Even though his best doggy friend absolutely loves guns as she associates them with fun things like squirrels falling out of trees, neither that, repeated calm assurances when shots are audible, or anything else has yet helped him change his mind about this. He hides in the back of the house, under a car, under my legs, or something similar and takes an hour or so to decide it's ok to go back to normal life after hearing one. I don't know if he'll eventually get over this or not. This is certainly a personality trait particular to Burley, as many ES are great hunting dogs. 

Burley sure he couldn't put his feet in the water and that I was abandoning him.

Some of the huge boulders he now crosses with out a second thought.

Now he loves the water as you can see!

Still hiding from the very scary sound of a distant gunshot.

In general, he has a cautious approach to new things which is a good for his safety in our wild location with new and potentially dangerous things on a regular basis. Like when he first met a skunk, he was sure it was a problem and circled it barking furiously, but was cautious enough that somehow he managed to stay far enough back to avoid being sprayed. Ice on creeks or lakes he has similar caution with. Gingerly testing the edges and steering far clear of anything at all fragile. A similar reaction came to the first mountain lion killed elk carcass we encountered together. Circling it sniffing, growling, and looking from a great distance before deciding that if I could touch it, maybe it was safe for him to come closer. In general, I'd say this cautious approach and taking time to consider new things is a defining characteristic of his personality.

As far as size, the ES breed has a range, and he's right in the middle of that. You can read the breed standard here - http://www.englishshepherd.org/breed-standard.html . At almost two and a half years old, Burley is just shy of 21 inches at the shoulder and 48 pounds of very lean muscle. He's remained at that height and weight since he was a about 10 months old. He is so lean and muscular that he looks like he's just made out of all feet, ears, tail, and tongue sometimes. 😃

He's continued with the raw diet his mama weaned him onto when she started sharing her food with him. Raw feeding has not been hard at all here. Wild elk provide the majority of my meat through the year and he now eats every bit the people don't consume. Head, tail, ribs, hooves, all organs, etc. I'm also able to source all the beef heart and liver he can eat for free from a local butcher who normally throws them away. To supplement this and add variety, we buy grocery store chicken quarters or legs when they're on sale, beef kidney and a very occasional pork cut which I can also get at the grocery, and whole suckers, whitefish, or trout heads/remains a few local fishermen friends will save in their freezers for me. And then when it's really cold in the winter so everything doesn't defrost while shipping, I order a big box of frozen chicken feet, green tripe, and whole smelt sold for dog food, as I can't source any of those locally. That gets spread through his meals over the year. As well as random whole eggs, all the pre-washing of my dishes (which is his job and he takes it seriously😊) and an occasional fruit or veggie he wants to share if I'm eating them. Though he has tried to sneak broccoli when I'm picking if from the garden. As I said, he's not a food motivated dog at all. While he seems to enjoy any of those foods when hungry, he's not a frequent eater. As a little puppy, I tried for several months to feed him three times a day as recommended for his age. He'd only ever eat a single meal a day and even skip days entirely. So I finally gave up and tried to feed him twice a day. He'd still only eat a single meal. So that's just what we do now. And he still chooses to self fast for a day or two at a time pretty regularly. I just put the food back in the freezer and he gets the same meal offered the next day till he decides he wants to eat again. He does seem to enjoy eating everything mentioned frozen solid, so I don't defrost anything. This is also very convenient as a frozen solid piece of meat is not wet, bloody, or messy in any way.

Burley's coat is constantly shiny and glowing and truly fits the descriptions I'd read of English Shepherds being "teflon" like. Everything slides off. If he's been through the dirt or mud before coming inside and laying down, when he stands up, he is clean and there is a neat doggy shaped pile of dirt left on the floor. The only grooming he's had in his life is an occasional brushing every month or so just to keep him in practice or sometimes to help if he's wagged his tail through a particularly dense bur bush, though he's pretty good at picking them out on his own. And the only bathing has been wadding, swimming, or bounding through snow. Except for one time he did get too close to a skunk. He has no doggy body odor and if you burry your nose into his fur, he smells like a clean stuffed animal. At two and a half years old, he also has yet to really shed at all. I don't know if this is due to his particular quirks, his diet, or our very cold location (Summers here are rarely above 70F for a high and near freezing or below every night. Winter is about 8 months long with 450 inches of snow being average. Though I've seen winters with more than 700 inches of snow.), but when I clean, there's more of my hair on the floor than his. This is not the norm for English Shepherds as they usually blow their coats out seasonally. His teeth are also shiny brilliant white.

English Shepherd, having been selected for health, skills, and personality traits over thousands of years, but not a strict appearance come in a wide variety of colors. Black and white, tri-color, black and tan, and various shades of sable. Burley's coat color is one of the many shades of sable, often called wolf sable. Like all English Shepherds, he started out with a baby furry coat and as he matured the double coat or layer of guard hairs filled in. Turning his puppy brown fur into a black tipped wolf sable shiny coat. Every black hair is actually half brown, so although as an adult he looks mostly black, if you part his fur or it's really wet, you can see all the brown in his undercoat. 

As you know, we live in a very cold and snowy area, and he adores that! With his thick double coat to keep him warm, huge paws in proportion to his weight for traveling through deep snow, he's built for the cold. In fact I suspect he probably thinks summer is a weird aberration when his snow all disappears temporarily. Even when we are on summer backpacking trips and get back to snow fields or glaciers in the mountains, the first thing he wants to do is lay down on them, roll in the snow, or slide across it.

While he loves to sleep in snowdrifts, he also enjoys the coziness of the wood stove. Sleeping totally content inches from the stove or on the couch.

He is very affectionate and loves to cuddle. True to the English Shepherd stereotype that nicknames them English Shadows, he is pretty much my shadow and if we are in the house, is usually laying somewhere that allows him to be touching some part of my body. He's sleeping on my feet as I type this. At night, he follows into the loft where the bed is and he sleeps at my side. Even outside, where there's plenty of room to roam as we live on a corner of a 800ish acre ranch surrounded by a few million acres of national forest and wilderness, he explores, but never far from my side. And as with his first stream and boulder crossings, he's not about to get left behind and will cry and howl if he thinks that's happening, so there's no chance I could accidentally lose him. 😀 When walking through the woods, he loves to investigate everything, but pops up every few seconds to be sure he still knows where I am or waits patiently as I climb hills slower than he does. Being out of sight is not an option, and though our whole house is so small that at most you could get about 19 feet apart, he still follows me into the bathroom every time as there's a little door separating it from the rest of the house. If I'm working at the computer or something ignoring him, he occasionally interrupts me with a very insistent nose letting me know he wants some petting and attention for a minute, but most of the time he's just happy to be at my side. He's similarly affectionate with everyone he knows. Loving to cuddle, share kisses, and doesn't want them to get out of sight either. If a friend runs over to their car to grab a jacket while we are hanging around a campfire outside on a summer evening for instance, when they reappear 20 seconds later, they need greeted all over again with wiggles and kisses as if they were lost for months in his opinion.

He's now been at my side almost 24/7 since the day I picked him up. Due to something he really can't come along for like an Dr. appointment, I've occasionally had to leave him for 4-5 hour stretch, but that's only been a handful of times total. Thankfully my lifestyle and work all involve things he can join me for. Our activities vary with the season, and include gardening for myself and others, firewood collection and splitting, backpacking or day hiking, wildlife photography, snow shoveling for our place and others (he's been on roofs with me when shoveling!), cooking/canning/fermenting/dehydrating food, long talks with good friends, reading or photo editing, trail clearing, hay making (he loves riding in tractors!), stock care, fencing, house cleaning for others, foraging for wild foods, videography for others, and more. And he's at my side for all of it.

This guy can run like the wind too! Like I said, he's fast when chasing something like a frisbee. But he reserves a whole separate gear for chasing big birds in the air. He, along with other ES, has something I understand is rare in the dog world outside of sight hound breeds. A flying gait that involved all four feet being off the ground at the same time at the start and end of each stride.

I know I'm biased, but his warm intelligent eyes just make me want to melt a little inside. 😘

On of the major summer activities that's a bit out of our normal routine, if our lives can be said to have much of a routine at all, is backpacking. While going on long day walks is the norm year round, ranging from 1-10 miles depending on the weather and how much time we have, we also head out on longer backpacking trips when we can. He has now covered several hundred miles of backpacking with me and did a wonderful job on all of these trips. Staying right with me even though off leash all the time unless we were very near a trail head or saw people/dogs approaching on the trail when he would be leashed. I wasn't sure how an exuberant and energetic one year old would handle sleeping in a tiny, ultralite, and fragile backpacking tent on our first trip together, but he was wonderful. Waiting patiently at the door till I got all settled into my sleeping bag and then carefully stepping inside, curling up in the tiny space beside me, and quietly going to sleep for the night. The ultralite tent, easily destroyed in a single trip by a careless human, is still intact and in immaculate condition. We covered mountains, peaks, passes, snowfields, lakes, creeks of all sizes, wildlife, and more. And Burley is a wonderful backpacking companion.

All in all, Burley is really the perfect companion to my life. Fitting into everything that goes on, and having or easily learning any skills needed for what we do. Things he doesn't know how to do are mostly because they are situations many would consider normal, but that just aren't part of our lives. He has siblings and relatives that live in cities, work as therapy dogs, family pets with little children they love, working ranch dogs, and rally champions. I'm sure he too would learn to deal with any of those things if they were part of what we did normally. One of these days he will have his own poultry to guard, will probably always have a garden to protect, and certainly always his people to love!

If you are looking for a great versatile homestead dog in your life, I obviously think the English Shepherd breed is worth considering. They are a well rounded dog with the ability to herd, hunt, protect, watch, control rodents, guard from predators, and more. Things to be aware of though are they really do love and need lots of time with their people so if you don't have the lifestyle or kind of household that has someone home much or all of the time, they may not be a good fit. Leaving them alone for most of the day every day isn't a good plan. There is really no such thing as a fence that could contain a ES that wanted to get out, they just love their people so much they don't usually try to leave them. But they are excellent jumpers (Burley can clear my head height in a leap from standing still on the ground), climbers, and very very smart. And a very bored and smart dog left alone in a house for long periods usually doesn't go well. And with their strong sense of normal and right and wrong, they can be bossy dogs so you do need to be comfortable with making the rules before they decide what they are all on their own. Just some things to consider before deciding one is a good fit for you.

I'm hoping for as long and healthy a life for Burley as possible, as I know whenever he leaves this world, there will be a huge hole left for me. It's very hard to imagine life without him, and I am very thankful for all the time, effort, and dedication that Tom and Krystal put into breeding and raising healthy, sound dogs and making sure they are wonderful fits for each home they go to. The gift they've given me in the form of such a wonderful and amazing companion in my life is huge, and I'm very thankful for every moment we have together!