Italian LGDs are enlisted to help in Queensland

We never had any livestock guardians when I lived out West of Mt Isa, but we'd make nightly rounds of our yards where we had beasts locked up and shoot dogs on sight. At least 2 - 3 nights every week we would bag 2 - 3 and on the odd occasion even more. The problem is with no other natural predators to contend with other than dingos, which they just cross breed with anyway... they get first pick on everything and anything they want, including livestock which are easy targets when they are fenced in and have nowhere to go. I think the introduction of livestock guardians is definitely a viable solution. However, there is one area I think they are going to run into big problems. Dingo Baits. We used to lose dogs (our dogs) to dingo baits all the time, people place them everywhere, either planned or illegally placed. I just hope none of those maremma's catch a bait, because its a horrible, slow, painful death. When you're 8 hours from the closest vet and you have the choice of putting a bullet in your best friend or watching him die in agony... lets just say its not a good day. Also there are a whole bunch of myxomatosis diseased rabbits and hares out there, which shouldn't be a problem since livestock guardians tend to have a low prey drive, but all the same, another hazard worth them thinking about in advance if they don't want to lose dogs unnecessarily. Be interesting to see how it turns out, I'll email a few buddies and see if there's been any other info posted about they know of.

[quote1256134441=realname] Many Italians living in Queensland,så why not a dog breed from Italy.. [/quote1256134441] They are very expensive and there is not a good community for these types of dogs in Australia. Plus there are plenty of other breeds which are more than capable of performing the work and better suited to the conditions available locally. Also - Australia has very stringent laws and regulations surrounding importing dogs from countries/places where rabies is present, since there aren't any animals with rabies in Australia and they would like to keep it that way. I have heard of dogs being quarantined for up to 6 months, which is hard on the dog, on top of the massive environmental/climate change. The wild dog problem, is also relatively new, dingos have been taken care of in the past using baits, and through government sanctioned culling, exterminators and local hunters - the wild dogs are another story, and the working breeds of Australia are more traditionally used for mustering, not livestock protection. Not that there wouldn't be any that are capable, but now they have hit a point where its such a problem they either try and solve it with their own dogs (risky) or bring in a tried and true breed like the Marrema :) Hope that makes sense.