A dog with a mission
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons, submitted by user Cobra-BlackMamba; GFDL.)
Rat Race Staff
Sometimes it’s easy to wish that we knew what we were meant to be from birth—fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, I gotta Google “fifty best jobs for your personality,” then not bother to read the results.
For thousands of years, an ancient breed of Turkish dogs has avoided this particular temptation, although they have their own problems to worry about. They are Kangal dogs, bred to guard sheep and fight and kill wolves.
“Every winter morning, the Yuksek family wakes at 5:30 a.m. to feed the sheep, dairy cows, and dogs before sitting down for a breakfast of honey, butter, cheese, and bread. The Yukseks’ sheep graze on a flat, six-square-mile plateau towering above Misirören. The view up here is spectacular at the altitude of 5,000 feet, and it’s an eye-watering 20 degrees in the wind. The shepherds whistle and shout all the time at the sheep, directing them this way and that, but it’s not common for the Kangals to face anywhere in the direction of the flock. Their heads are always pointed towards the horizon or the nearest hillside; they are always on watch. When we load into an SUV at the end of a bitterly cold day, they’re still looking out into the distance with no desire to turn in.”
They aren’t widely known outside of Turkey, but according to Wikipedia Kangal dogs have been successfully used to protect livestock from lions in Africa, and herders in the Western United States are also interested in the breed.
Read the whole story at Outside.
