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[SJC <indexer AT localnet.com>]

We used to live at the edge of town and our place was for whatever 
reason a huge attraction to some undesirable elements of the local 
population.  We had 3 Great Danes at the time, and one Bedlington 
terrier, all noisy and one of the Danes was fairly menacing....didn't 
make a whole lot of difference.  Then we hit by accident on one of the 
better homestead 'dogs' I've had, only it wasn't a dog at all but a 
flock of about a half-dozen Toulouse geese.  They are observant, noisy 
when on alert but quiet otherwise, not afraid of anything, and will keep 
people right in their cars, honking the horn for all it's worth, 
hollering "Come get these things".  People on foot have no clue what to 
do with them, so they generally simply leave.  They run off stray 
dogs/cats/other critters.    They completely cut out the petty theft 
issue we'd been having before we got them, also the wandering, 
troublesome kids who were unsupervised all day every summer....No vet 
bills and good strawberry patch weeders, too.  Of course, we did have to 
start picking our mail up at the PO because the mailman refused to 
deliver it......afraid of "those mean ducks".  This was a guy who braved 
the neighborhood mutts without a thought.

They are hard on regular gardens, though, and have to be fenced out, and 
also I fenced them so they could surround the house, barn, and garage 
but not get to the steps; otherwise it was goose-poop covered 
steps...yuk.  But all in all they were good at patrol and repelling, 
both.  The only critter problem we had with them was that the geese are 
easy targets for a fox as they won't leave the nest, but usually the 
gander (they mate for life) sees to that.  I was amazed at how long they 
live, by the time we moved from there and gave them to the folks moving 
in, several of them were over 20 y/o.

A lot of the Amish keep Airdale terriers for farm work.  They can be 
pretty menacing (like most terriers they have big teeth, helps them look 
scary), are fairly large, smart animals, pretty territorial so stay 
close to  home, good at vermin, hardy even in cold climates, and not 
hard on stock, but not herders, so easy to have around fowl, etc.  A lot 
of the Amish also use them for small cart work.    My uncle's had them 
for 70 years and still swears by them.

We had a so-called farm collie at one time and he was just OK, liked to 
roam too much even though castrated, and so was not always on the scene 
when needed, tended to protect livestock better than buildings.  Many of 
the shepherd breeds are very territorial which is good, but so fixated 
on herding that your chickens won't be too thankful.  We once had a dog 
that so throughly herded most of other critters that they couldn't get 
to their food for the dog herding them. Some, though, are not so intent 
on herding as to be a problem.  A lot of people are ready-programmed to 
be afraid of a German Shepherd, so that's a free leg up for them, really 
smart and take training really well.   No matter what, look at a dog's 
historical work/use patterns:  there's the key to getting one that will 
do what you want/need, since if you choose right, you'll have something 
that's predisposed in that direction and therefore much easier to train.

Good example of that down the road right now, woman got a Cairn terrier, 
because she thought it was cute, and small and she wanted a little lap 
dog.  Having trouble with it and someone sicced her on me, since I have 
"a terrier".  Yeah, well, those little Cairn buggers are busy little 
bodies, always snooping and sniffing around, yappy, peering under things 
and into corners, never ever likely to be a quiet, 
happy-to-sit-with-the-sedentary-old-lady dog.  If she'd looked at the 
background of that breed with her own wants/needs in mind, she'd not 
have chosen a Cairn, likely.  And of course, I turned out to be a bad 
person to ask as I'm not all that fond of fuzzy little yapping 
critters......she needs a whole 'nother dog, of a breed that has always 
been a pet, like ShitZhu or Peke or some other kind of dog I tend to 
think of as "useless", just because I don't look for a dog to sit in my 
lap (get in the way of my knitting!), but for her wouldn't be useless, 
but would be the perfect kind to have.

Susan Jane, in Maine