The ancient practice of livestock guardian dogs is highly successful on Australian farms today

Guardian dogs do a great job of protecting Australian livestock from predators.

In a new survey of Australian farmers, we have found that with correct management, these dogs can be very effective in the long term, and at a lower cost than alternative methods. These findings should inform policy on livestock management.

An ancient practice

The use of guardian dogs for livestock protection has a long history – farmers have been using dogs to protect their livestock from predators for thousands of years.

The earliest evidence of this dates to 9,000 years ago in southern Greece. Books on agriculture written 2,000 years ago in ancient Rome made it clear that livestock guardian dogs were essential for successful farming and gave detailed instructions on their selection and management.

Guardian dogs remained important throughout Europe and Asia until the twentieth century. Then, their use declined because of widespread extermination of predators and they were almost forgotten.

Now, livestock guardian dogs are making a comeback. They allow farming to coexist with wild predators, improving both biodiversity conservation and profitability of farming.

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Members of the flock

In Australia, dingoes and foxes are major threats to livestock. Farmers usually respond to this threat by killing predators or fencing them out, but these methods are costly and don’t always work.

Instead, some farmers have turned to guardian dogs for help.

Traditionally, guardian dogs worked with shepherds; in modern farming they usually work independently. Pups are raised in close contact with livestock and bond with them. As adults they essentially become members of the flock or herd, giving it continuous protection and (in some respects) leadership.

This way of protecting livestock is still rare in Australia. Ten years ago we assessed its effectiveness by surveying 150 farmers who were using livestock guardian dogs. We found the dogs were very successful. Farmers reported that when they introduced guardian dogs to their farms, livestock losses dropped from previously high levels, often to zero.

Success was as high on very large properties with many animals to protect as it was on small farms.

Good for the long haul

But we had a lingering worry. What if it is just too hard to keep this system working in the long term? Maybe predators initially avoid farms protected by guardian dogs but eventually learn to outsmart or intimidate them and go back to killing livestock; or perhaps farmers find guardian dogs too difficult to manage in the long term and give up on them.

For our new research, we re-surveyed the same farmers to ask how they fared over the intervening decade. Were they still using guardian dogs? If so, were the dogs still working well, and if not why had the farmer stopped using them? Either way, we wanted to know what problems they had faced.

Half the farmers in our original sample no longer used guardian dogs, but this was mostly because they had retired or otherwise changed their business such that the dogs were not needed, not because they had failed.

Some farmers gave up on guardian dogs because of two kinds of problems: 24% had trouble with dog misbehaviour, and 19% had trouble with neighbours who objected to the presence of these dogs close to their own farms.