When most people look at Puck, Percy, and Josie, they see three very large, very fluffy dogs. We see coworkers.
Our livestock guardian dogs are an important part of the farm’s ecosystem and one of the reasons our animals can safely spend their days grazing, scratching, dust bathing, and generally getting into whatever farm animals have decided needs investigating.
Great Pyrenees have been bred for generations to live alongside livestock and protect them from predators. Unlike herding dogs, whose job is to move livestock, livestock guardian dogs are there to live with, watch over, and protect them. Their size, deep bark, scent marking, and constant presence tell predators that this particular buffet is very much closed.
And their work here is surprisingly diverse.
We have virtually no groundhogs or moles on the property, thanks in large part to Puck, who has always considered underground trespassers a personal challenge. Their presence and territorial marking help discourage foxes, raccoons, and other smaller predators from getting too comfortable around the farm. Most importantly, they help protect our chickens, ducks, turkeys, and young livestock from birds of prey. Hawks and eagles are beautiful animals, but from the perspective of a chicken or baby goat, beauty is rather beside the point.
Puck, Percy, and Josie watch the ground, patrol the boundaries, and keep a suspicious eye on the skies. Sometimes that vigilance extends to perfectly innocent butterflies and dragonflies, but apparently farm security has a very strict better safe than sorry policy.
A Very Important Distinction: We Are Not a Dog or Cat Rescue
Although you’ll meet our dogs throughout the farm and sanctuary, Mallard’s Landing Sanctuary does not accept dogs or cats under any circumstances.
There are already rescues, shelters, foster networks, and organizations specifically equipped to care for and rehome companion animals. Our sanctuary’s resources, facilities, and mission are focused on farm animals, particularly those who have fewer rescue options available to them.
Our livestock guardian dogs are different because they are here specifically as working farm animals, not sanctuary intakes. In fact, livestock guardian dogs used for legitimate agricultural purposes can be treated as working animals and farm business expenses for tax purposes rather than simply personal pets.
That distinction makes perfect sense to us because we’ve seen firsthand just how much work these dogs actually do.
Of course, being a working animal doesn’t mean being only a working animal.
Puck, Percy, and Josie are deeply loved members of our farm family. They get veterinary care, affection, comfortable places to sleep, plenty of attention, and, in Percy’s case, approximately seventeen million hugs.
They just happen to have jobs, too.
And each one arrived here by a very different road.
So, meet Puck, Percy Bear, and Josie, the three dogs currently helping keep watch over the animals, fields, barns, coops, and apparently every highly suspicious butterfly at Drunken Duck Farm and Mallard’s Landing Sanctuary.
Puck
The Original Farm Dog • Retired Patrol Officer • Professional Hay-Pile Napper
Puck is the original farm dog, the first livestock guardian to call our farm home, and these days, a very happily retired gentleman.
His story began in the rural farmland of Tennessee, where Puck took his job of patrolling the countryside a little too seriously. Like many Great Pyrenees, property lines were more of a suggestion than a rule, and Puck regularly wandered his territory keeping watch over everything he believed needed protecting.
Unfortunately, one neighboring farmer didn’t appreciate his patrol route and began firing buckshot toward Puck whenever he came near the property. Eventually, he told Puck’s original owner that the next time he saw the dog, he would shoot him.
Through a series of foster homes, exchanges, and a rather winding journey north, Puck eventually found his way to us.
His past came with him. Puck is terrified of fireworks because, for a dog who once had pieces of buckshot embedded in his body, those loud explosions aren’t harmless entertainment. They are sounds associated with pain and fear. Puck is one of the biggest reasons we are so outspoken about the excessive use of fireworks around farms and livestock.
When he arrived, Puck was also dealing with a tick-borne infection and a large, untreated tumor on his leg. It had grown so much that he could no longer run and play comfortably. After surgery, we prepared ourselves for the possibility of cancer. Instead, his veterinarian and our entire farm family received wonderful news: the tumor was not cancerous. Once healed, Puck was able to run again.
We named him Puck after the mischievous fairy from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, without fully considering what sort of behavior we might be summoning onto the farm. He proceeded to live up to the name beautifully.
Now well into his senior years, Puck has officially retired from active farm duty. His days are spent lounging in the shade, supervising the younger generation when he feels like it, and enjoying the sort of retirement every hardworking farm dog deserves.
Most evenings, you’ll find our original guardian exactly where he wants to be: sound asleep on a luxurious pile of hay in the kidding shed.
Percy Bear
Great Pyrenees • Accidental Farm Dog • Professional Hug Distributor
Percy came to the farm because of what may be one of the greatest intake miscommunications we’ve ever had.
We were expecting a rabbit…. The people dropping off the rabbit also left us a Great Pyrenees puppy.
Surprise!
We had already been considering finding Puck a companion and another livestock guardian to help protect the farm, so the unexpected puppy stayed. And that is how Percy became our second Great Pyrenees.
While Puck has a distinctly wolf-like appearance, especially around the eyes, Percy went in an entirely different direction. Percy looks less like an ancient guardian of the flock and more like an enormous fluffy teddy bear who has somehow been issued a security badge.
His full name, Percy Bear, is another Shakespeare-inspired farm name. Shakespeare famously included the stage direction “Exit, pursued by a bear” in The Winter’s Tale. Somewhere along the way, “pursued by bear” became “Percy Bear,” and Percy he has been ever since.
Percy does take his livestock guardian responsibilities seriously… mostly.
Given the choice between guarding animals and receiving hugs, pets, scratches, and human attention, Percy would very much like to discuss the compensation package associated with each position. He is particularly fond of giving enormous Great Pyrenees hugs and believes personal space is something humans invented unnecessarily.
Percy also has an especially gentle way with children and adults on the autism spectrum. He seems to instinctively understand when someone needs a quieter, calmer kind of companionship and is perfectly content to simply stay close and offer a giant fluffy presence. One of Percy’s littermates, who lives in Dayton, has shown similar qualities, and we have often thought that with the proper training, Percy could have made an amazing therapy dog.
Still, alongside Puck, Percy has diligently protected the farm from all manner of terrifying aerial invaders. Hawks and eagles are taken seriously.
Other birds are suspicious. Dragonflies are monitored. Butterflies are clearly up to something… And Percy is on the case.
Big, fluffy, affectionate, and just a little ridiculous, Percy may have arrived here completely by accident, but he very quickly became family.
Josie
Anatolian Shepherd/Great Pyrenees Mix • Gentle Giant • Resident Outlaw
Josie was supposed to be another Great Pyrenees.
Josie had other plans.
Named after The Outlaw Josey Wales, Josie is an Anatolian Shepherd/Great Pyrenees mix. The name turned out to be strangely appropriate, because our big farm dog has accumulated a bit of an “outlaw” history of his own.
Before coming to us, Josie had multiple bite accusations made against him as a puppy, none of which were considered his fault. Combined with a difficult divorce in his previous home, Josie needed somewhere permanent where his history wouldn’t constantly put his future in jeopardy.
So he came to our farm.
And he isn’t leaving.
Josie is enormous. When he puts his front paws on my shoulders, which he loves to do immediately before delivering a giant wet dog kiss, he stands taller than my 5’5″ frame. Beneath his shorter double coat is what feels like an entire dog constructed out of muscle, complete with enormous paws and a bark capable of rattling the farmyard.
Despite that imposing package, Josie is a gentle giant with the people he trusts.
His Anatolian traits have also shown us some qualities we really appreciate in a livestock guardian. Compared with our beloved Great Pyrenees, he has much less desire to wander, while still possessing the size, strength, confidence, and guardian instincts needed for farm life.
We absolutely adore our Great Pyrenees boys, Puck and Percy, and they will always be part of our farm family. But Josie has convinced us that, going forward, Anatolian Shepherds will likely be our livestock guardian breed of choice, particularly because of their size and tendency to stay closer to home.
The dog who arrived with an “outlaw” reputation found exactly what every outlaw eventually needs: a place to finally call home.