oh, oakley!
Our little grove is always changing and growing, and with regenerative farming in mind, we’re always working to keep a healthy balance with nature, including wildlife. With every addition we make to the farm, a new challenge (and opportunity) arises.
We have started small with chickens, guinea fowl, ducks, geese and the recent addition of rescued pigs to find grazing livestock that can forage the natural vegetation and turn the soil. We learned very quickly that we would need to add a guardian dog to protect the livestock and our farm friends. While free ranging our guineas and chickens, we lost 5 guinea fowl in a span of two weeks, and in broad daylight.
Nicole started looking for good breeds that are gentle and good around kids and people in general. She fell in love with the Great Pyrenees and soon after we were both hooked. She started contacting organizations that had Great Pyrenees. In the process, we discovered that dogs of this breed are considered livestock in many states and as such are exempted from many of the humane treatment standards reserved for pets.
We worked with the National Great Pyrenees Rescue and one of their partner organizations, Unega Mountain Dog Rescue, finally reached out to let us know that there was a dog we were approved to adopt.
Previously named “Lima Bean,” Oakley was born on a farm in Idaho where the owner was breeding multiple dogs and not supplying them with adequate food or living accommodations. From the time we watched this news report about Oakley’s situation, our hearts went out to him and our minds were made up to bring him home. The family that was fostering him wasn’t able to drive him down from Oregon for weeks, so Nicole and I decided to make a road trip out of it and drove up the coast.
As soon as we saw Oakley we fell in love. He was gentle but still very unsure. It took me and the foster family working together to carry him to our car. He was not leash trained and any time a collar or leash was put on him he would just fall to the ground. One of the most memorable moments was when we got to the hotel on the beach in Oregon and tried to take him to the room. He was lying in the middle of the parking lot for what seemed like 20 minutes. When we finally got him to the room, he went into the space between the bed and the wall and stayed there for several hours. We didn’t mind because we had a great view from our room and gave him space and time to relax. After what seemed like several hours he got up and started exploring.
We continued our journey back home and by the time we got there Oakley was pretty good on the leash and really warming up to us. He was still understandably reserved, but he was finally home.
Figuring out how to let a large dog be himself on our large farm, was the next challenge. He needed to be able to run and exercise, but we also needed a way to track him if he was getting too far away. Great Pyrenees are large dogs with lots of energy who are most active at night since they’ve been bred to protect animals from predators that come out at night.
We tried one GPS collar that didn’t work out and then stumbled on the FI collar (affiliate link, but we would never recommend something that we didn’t truly love). If you are ever concerned about tracking your dog if they get out, these collars have been amazing. We can watch him on an app and mark him Lost and it increases the updates. You don’t have to charge the collars often, and they come with a little light so you can see the collar at night. The best part is they are way cheaper than all the other brands, but you will need to purchase a yearly LTE plan for the GPS. It tracks all their steps and tracks their sleeping. Oakley is now part of the family and stays up at night going in and out of the house, warding off coyotes from the property within our gated back yard.
He has not quite been able to be around the chickens yet because his young mind only wants to play with them and lick them. But he and the pigs have a great time playing and running around together. Oakley is living his best life now!
