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["Lisa K.V. Perry" <lisakvperry AT gmail.com>]

Our two BCs are good at letting us know when a car goes by on the private
road, this is a few cars or trucks a day now since the landowner is building
3/4 mile further down the road. They have a more aggressive sounding bark
when UPS, my husband's guitar students or others come down the driveway in
their cars.

They bark at deer during the night, we can hear them chasing after them at
times. During the day they the only go after deer 50% of the time.

They bark like a son of a gun when a bear or mountain lion is in the
blueberries, at the barn or in the fields near the house. The dogs stay
close to the house then but the tone of their bark lets you know it's
something 'serious' out there - and we've found the proof (or witnessed it,
in the case of a bear) to why they made such a commotion.

The Blue Heeler we briefly had (a stray we adopted) got off the line and
killed the chickens. He ran very swiftly, like a greyhound, and had a fierce
bark that was far more assertive sounding than the BCs when it came to cars.

Something to think about, will you train the dogs? When we got our female BC
four years ago, we were away from our farm more than we were here and thus
she was not trained, which was our fault.

Lisa