LGD

Lucius Vorenus --breed=Kuvasz !

 Centurion of the Roman XI Legion
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Page covers Aug 30 2010, to ...


Leap ... run ... skid-stop and sniff at things ... sort of a youthful 'Agility Training'  Course ?

This is the area where he will be expected to work,  once he's grown up.  So, I let him off the leash and naturally he can't resist exploring.




I'll need to go by this store again and re-examine the Digital Camera settings.  Seems the shutter speed must have been too slow and things blurred.  Vorenus really likes the attention she is giving ! Hey ... these last two pictures seems to simulate a Judge from a Specialty examining him ... hmmmm  ... gives me ideas ... unless, as an adult, he's like Leroy or Bandit and would politely refuse the Judge to get close .... hmmm .. and if the Judge pressed it ... welllllll ...Odds were on Leroy and Bandit in those days.

A worker at the tire shop, some 25 miles away, greets Vorenus.  Zakat can be seen, if you look for his tongue hanging out, in the truck. The worker reminded me that this was flat-tire #15 . We were here Saturday with Mary's SUV; Monday with the truck and then today, Wednesday. A jerk/owner Rick Bowling Lime spreading Co. was supposed to make a solid road for us. He used Steel-Slag from a very poor quality place. We've pulled out over 40 pounds of metal stuff, screws, nails and so forth. He refused to fix it. Lawyers are usually way too expensive for farmers and I can't get him close enough to let Zakat determine that he's a ruthless crook.




Vorenus helps me sort out the Horse "Fly Masks" early morning Sept 04th.  I still keep him on the Lead Line, mostly, down here. I worry that there is a possibility that when he sniffs the lower-legs of horses, which he does to begin to identify each individual ....  that the line could become entangled. If I set him loose while I walk about, I worry that he would walk under them at the wrong moment. Oh, all the hoses here are quite used to LGD's being under them, beside them and so forth. But those are the Adults. You get the idea.

Bored with the fact I am writing stories to the Kuv-L, Vorenus takes a nap and awaits his morning chore of going to the horse barn.




File Copy: Leroy being photographed for "Progressive Farmer" magazine article about working LGD's in America. Leroy was definitely a Ladies Dog ... oh, he liked me a whole lot.  But bring around a young, attractive, girl and I no longer existed.

Vorenus , the totally clever Kuvasz Puppy, has begun to drive the Ford-Super-Duty.  He's pleased as punch with himself.




Yes indeed.  hill climbing with the aid of a Kuvasz Co-Pilot is a challenge in itself.  I hope he can see the trail, because I can not ! That's Zakat looking out the right-rear window. I "think" he will yell to me if I miss the path. ....  Right?

I might be saying it is getting more difficult to navigate the hill.  My "Co-Pilot" has been insisting he is a better skipper than I.




Wednesday and Vorenus begins the morning chores by exploring the upper sheep paddock as I hand out LGD food.  It's always exciting to watch a young Kuvasz "Learn" all of his surroundings. This one is quite bright.  He spends an appropriate amount of time learning "what it is and where it fits into the scheme" ... and then he acts like a puppy and runs all around .. until he finds another curiosity .. then the learning begins anew. .. Alas, one doesn't have all the free time needed to follow him around and watch him learn.

Vorenus using his "New" ramp I got at the Petland place Saturday.  He's figured it out,  both in and up into ... whereas Zakat is still excessively suspicious of the ramp.  Zakat goes to great lengths to leap sideways over it.  Bagari tried it out, down in the lower pastures yesterday. She was so perplexed, trotted form one side to the other, then looked up on the deck, judged that it was impossible to make the leap ... ran to the other side and looked under the door .. then gave up. I removed and she flew into the truck .. Hey, this is why we love LGD's,  isn't it? They do not take anything new as a friendly object, or person ...




Here Vorenus gets familiar with a large bottom plow.  He is staring at the hulking item.  He watches then as I fill the creep-feed with calf-grain.

Down in Bagari-Land to add grain to the calf "Creep-Feed" .. or .. meals-on-sleds , if you will. Vorenus is yelling at me to hurry up or let him out to explore.  Zakat, his day-time mentor,  is patient in the back part of the truck. Seen on the right,  by the lariat "curve" .. I keep it behind the rear-seat headrest .. use it often enough that it's an important part of the truck.




I've got pretty good recall on Vorenus by now. So I turned him loose.  His body-guard, Zakat,  was resting in the shade of the Creep-Feed and saw Vorenus take off sans Lead-Line. I followed on the escapade. Should Vorenus venture into potential serious trouble, and decide at that moment to ignore a recall, I am certain I can call Zakat and I am certain Vorenus will instinctively follow the older LGD Mentor. Or, conversely, I can have Zakat attack the threat ...either will work.  A couple hours later and Vorenus was tied-out in the horse-barn. Bagari saw MiHa, a frisky young thoroughbred, trot up to Vorenus. Bagari hopped towards MiHa and she barked at the filly. MiHa stopped approaching Vorenus and Bagari turned an walked away. It doesn't always work this well. But it's nice to relay to other LGD owners how it "Can" work when integrating new LGD puppies.

Eventually though,  Vorenus gets bored and ounces about.  So, one can easily placate a young Kuvasz with a chunk of fresh meat on bone ... this morsel occupied him for about a half-hour as he laid in the shade and ripped meat from the bone. His little teeth actually did grind a lot of the bone, which he then ate and fortified himself with calcium.





We discovered that Vorenus kept going down in his rear-end ... in the house, he'd have trouble getting up. He had severe reactions apparently to the grasses, according to our vet .. this lasted for months and we used various meds from the Vet to help alleviate the rashes the poor guy got. The longer the hip problem went on the more he chose to NOT play. We took him to our vet and he x-rayed under a sedated Vorenus. The results were, for us, devastating. Something like Subluxated hips? And little to no hip-sockets. We have a group of friends who wanted to help run a donate campaign for surgery, straight to a Vet, Ohio State .. but the breeder refused to consent to a public campaign. The parents both were OFA certified super-perfect. And our vt stressed that good parents are no promise that a stray puppy would not get Hip Displaysia. The OCD was very painful for him in his left shoulder. All of this was very very stressful for us.. We have been trying to reestablish our Kuvasz presence on the farm. There is nothing quite like the Kuvasz at work. I have not seen all the traits i a single breed like the working LGD. Now if I could just find a breeder with working LGD's. I believe, had my friends and I mounted the donate campaign, that young Vorenus would have been able to perform the necessary work for a long time. ... But then ... things don't always go the ay I want then to, do they? So, as of early December, we are Kuvasz-less again ...

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