This rope looks huge for her in this video – taken around June 24th when I hired her to help work the farm 😉 -, but only a couple weeks later and she has almost doubled in size. I’m sure she’s at 30lbs by now. She is supposed to end up around 80-100lbs. Her parents were big and tall, but not huge. It’s hard to say, but her feet are very big. She’s definitely going to keep growing fast over the next year.
New Livestock Guardian Dog in Training: Bella!
Meet Bella! She is a livestock guardian dog breed. She came from working parents on a farm over by Plymouth. Her mother is a registered Anatolian Shepherd and her father is a purebred Maremma Sheepdog. Mom and I went to look at the pups and picked her up a few weeks back! She is growing like a weed. 26lbs at her first vet appointment last week and only 13 weeks old! Her mom was tall and slender and her dad a little shorter and chunkier so it will be interesting to see where she lands.
We do obedience training at least twice a day, leash walks at least once a day. She gets brushing a few times a week at least and I try to play with her paws and put my fingers in her mouth/look at her teeth often so she grows used to being held, poked, prodded, etc so she won’t be fearful of the vet. Overall she is very calm, doesn’t challenge fences, and really doesn’t pay the ducks much attention (which is what you want!). She will be 14 weeks old this weekend. She is still a pup of course and has lots of ropes and chews and such to help get her excess energy out. Phew it’s work! I really wish I would have adopted her brother when I got her so she had a pup to get her energy out on. LOL Someday soon hopefully I’ll find another to join her. Gotta work on some more fencing first! Hobby farm work is never done! But that is part of the joy in life 🙂