Meet Ranger -The New Farm Guardian

Meet Ranger, the newest member of the farm. He’s going to have a full time job being the guardian of the goats, and chickens around the farm.

Everyone, meet Ranger! At the beginning of September we brought home our sweet Ranger boy. He is a Great Pyrenees puppy, and will spend his days guarding the farm. We did plenty of research into which breed would best fit our needs, and I am SO glad we found this sweet guy.

Great Pyrenees are notoriously good guardians. As a matter of fact, that is the breed’s original purpose. They have been around for a long time, some have even said since the 18th century B.C. Great Pyrenees were brought to the U.S. by General Lafayette in 1824. They are beautiful, gentle giants who are very loyal to their family, and typically get along well with children.

They do have an excessive amount of fur. That sheds. This is not a deal breaker for us as Ranger is living in our barn. They also have a tendency to bark. Again, not a deal breaker. We want him to be on alert to keep the critters away. They’re also huge. A male can be up to 150lbs. The bigger the better, right?!

These dogs are intelligent. They’re also highly independent. We’ve been told they’re not the easiest to obedience train, but consistency pays off. We’ve been working with him a little every day, and so far, he’s done great. He seems eager to please.

Why did we chose to get a puppy now? As it turns out, we’ve had a thief here at Sunshine Valley. He’s been stealing chickens in the middle of the night, and has evaded being captured. Our hope is that with a big barking guardian we’ll have less predators roaming around.

We have high hopes for this little guy, and we are so excited to watch him grow.