Belle Watching Over Her Charge

 It's Sunday Morning 7AM, just a beautiful morning already.  I step out on the back patio and observe the sights and sounds of the morning. Click on the arrow below and you will see and hear what I did while having a cup of Community Coffee Cafe Blend this morning...

Allow me to give a little background.  Belle is our Great Pyrenees Livestock Guardian Dog.  She's such a good girl.  She loves her people.  I'm going to be honest, though.  She hasn't always been real good at her job.  Belle was supposed to protect her chickens from the bloodthirsty mink that went through our flock like poop through a goose.  While Belle was asleep in our garage, the mink drained the lifeblood from our egg layers.  She likes us so much, she'd rather be around us than keeping watch over her charge.

On another occasion, a dog broke through our fence and killed a few chickens and Belle was nowhere to be seen.  I was real unfortunate.  We were feeding her.  We kept our end of the bargain and Belle was falling woefully short on her end.  And then something lately changed.  It's as if she finally got what she was hired to do.  It all suddenly clicked.  And now, she enjoys being close to the goats and chickens.  She's still a little leery of the cows.  But she'll position herself in their midst and sit at attention, scanning the horizon, searching for anything that's amiss.

Something caught Belle's attention to the west of our homestead.  You can see her standing up in the center of the photo below, observing and then barking.  The goats suddenly took notice.  They raised their ears and ran together in a pile, facing the same direction.

I zoomed in so that you could see her at her post.  When she was just a puppy, we traveled to Colfax, LA to pick her up.  The owners lived near the woods.  They told us that their adult Great Pyrenees would venture out at night and attack and kill coyotes.  They would come back in the morning with their white coats stained with (coyote) blood.  Belle is a gentle giant, but I assume she's got a killer instinct within.

Here are the goats all stacked up together once Belle began barking to warn them.  They are looking in the direction that Belle is barking.  I never could figure out what she was alarmed about.  I was in my robe and didn't want to be too immodest in the event that the neighbors were out and about.

In about 30 minutes I ventured out to show appreciation to our girl for doing her job.

What a good girl!