Shepherds?
Yeah, that's a thing in the Bible, and maybe in Ireland back in the days of Saint Patrick, but it's not a job description today in England, Scotland, New York, or Australia.
What about elsewhere?
Well, where there are real predators still about -- wolves and bears for example.
In those place where large predators exist in free-range sheep country -- Wyoming, Montana, Turkey, Canada, Australia, small parts of Italy and Spain -- livestock-guarding dogs are still employed.
The presence of livestock guarding dogs doesn't stop all predation, of course, but they've proven effective for 4,000 years, and sometime livestock-guarding dogs appear in new places.
In Namibia, for example, the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) bought about 300 Turkish Kangal Shepherd Dogs to help protect livestock from cheetah attacks. After the dogs were employed, Cheetah-based livestock kills dropped from 19 per farmer annually to 2.4. The program has now been been extended to Kenya.
Livestock guarding dogs are now being employed in parts of Scandinavia where wolf and bear populations there have increased. Some eastern US sheep and goat farmers are also embracing LSGDs as a way of deterring rising coyote populations. And in Washington State, they have proven successful at warding off Bald Eagle and Great Horned Owl predation of sheep, chickens, and ducks.
Livestock guarding dogs come with a downside, of course. Along with the cost of acquisition, feeding, housing, and veterinary care, there is the fact that these large dogs can be very flock protective to the point of attacking dogs (and perhaps even people) that stray on to the property. Of course, that's the idea -- a feature as well as a potential liability. As the song goes, every rose has its thorns.
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