We assessed causes of pre-senile mortality among working guarding dogs, and its effects on their management and cost. A population of 449 livestock guarding dogs in 31 states showed no differences in mortality due to breed or sex, but dogs working on open rangelands died more frequently (p<.001) than those working on farms or fenced ranches. Half of the farm dogs died before they reached 38 months of age, by which time nearly three-quarters of the open rangelands dogs had succumbed. Accidents accounted for over half the deaths, culling for inappropriate behavior accounted for one-third, and diseases for 9%. High accident and culling rates in young dogs substantially increased the cost of this predator control technique. However, we found 2 main areas where corrective measures can be applied: (1) increasing the awareness among producers that accidents are a main cause of deaths especially during the dogs' first 30 months of age; and (2) reducing the number of culls by improving the genetics of the dogs and by training producers to manage them. This material was digitized as part of a cooperative project between the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. The Journal of Range Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact lbry-journals@email.arizona.edu for further information. Migrated from OJS platform August 2020
Scholarly peer-reviewed articles published by the Society for Range Management. Access articles on a rolling-window basis from vol. 1, 1948 up to 5 years from the current year. Formerly Journal of Range Management (JRM). More recent content is available by subscription from SRM.