Meadow, our Maremma guard dog is injured!

Well, we have started out the year here on the ranch with a dog who looks like she was in a fight with another dog, coyote or (?)  We went out this morning to do chores and Meadow was in the hay building laying on an old sleeping bag that she had made into her bed on top of some bales of hay. She will usually come out to greet us when we walk up the road to the Alpaca pens, but today she didn't.  I went to the building after petting the other two dogs, Pan and Furio who greeted us. There she was looking up at me with dried blood around her left eye and some blood along her muzzle and wagging her tail, happy to see me.


Meadow's injuries



I went over to her to see what had happened. At first I thought maybe she had gotten tangled in some old barb wire fencing that we have here on the property (we try to pick it up whenever we find it), but no, that wasn't it. It looked like something had tried biting her. There wasn't any puncture wounds, but something had broken the skin.  My husband and I checked out the other two maremmas to see if they had been injured or looked like they had gotten into a fight with her. Furio the aggressive maremma that we own, will defend anything that he thinks belongs to him. He will usually share with Meadow his littermate. There was a dead mouse laying in front of him, but no other sign of a dog fight with neither Pan or Furio. The next thing  my husband and I did was walk around the pasture fences to see if we could find any signs of a fight, such as blood or some sort of animal tracks. We found nothing.  The only conclusion that we came up with, is that this happened down by the river or in the woods.

We brought Meadow back to the house to clean up her wounds and treat them with some antibiotic cream. She has been lying in the house today eating up all of the attention (and of course special treats) that she is getting from us.  We will keep an eye out for whatever it might have been. Hopefully "it" looks worse than her. We are sure that Meadow was doing her job, protecting us, the Alpacas, goats and chickens from whatever the "threat" was. Maremmas are known for defending their livestock to their death. They are an awesome breed.

Meadow's injuries after being cleaned up. 

Gary & I wish everyone a very Happy New Year.