Hi! My name is Rachel and I am ZoFo’s Colorado Mountain Dog! This just means that I am a mixture of different livestock guardian breeds that are bred to be super friendly. I’d say it worked because I am one of the friendliest dogs you will ever meet, not to toot my own horn. I came to ZoFo from a wonderful home where I was a mom to multiple litters of pups and a protector of the land. The staff at ZoFo were looking for a new livestock guardian dog and my old humans thought I might be a good fit. The ZoFo humans were pretty cool, so I was excited to explore somewhere new!
When I first got to ZoFo I met all my new people and immediately loved them all! They are so friendly and give me all the belly scratches I could ask for…which is a lot! After I settled in, they started walking me through this closed in yard for a few minutes a day. It was a large space filled with strange creatures with long necks that made weird humming and yelling noises for no apparent reason. From listening to the humans, they are called alpacas. Well, I don’t like them very much and let the humans know that, so they stopped taking me in that yard. Like I said earlier I was made to be around humans and be showered with attention by people!
Once the ZoFo humans figured out I wanted to be with them, I continued to train them on my preferences. Such as I want to be outside as much as possible. Yes, I need to be around my people, but I also need to watch the property to let them know when there might be a threat or danger nearby. In order to do this, I quickly learned how to open the front door of the building, so I can go out as often as I please. Then I lay in the sun in front of the building and bark to alert the humans whenever I see something or someone they should know about.
In return for protecting my humans, they also help me. Turns out the reason I love belly scratches so much is because I have a lot of allergies and am itchy all the time. I am allergic to chicken, salmon, peanuts, grass, wheat and more! Since learning this, I am now on a very special limited ingredient diet and allergy medication. This has helped me not be as uncomfortable and the food doesn’t taste bad either!
I don’t just like the humans here, I also love my new pack. There are two other livestock guardian dogs, Zoey and Jelly who live here, along with some smaller dogs, Rocky and Chaco. Zoey is a little weird, she actually likes the alpacas and that is where she spends all of her time. But she will say hi to me through the fence. The others will run and play with me! I really enjoy this for about 15 seconds. After that I must rest in order to have energy to watch over the people and property as a good guardian dog should.
So if you ever visit the farm, you should ask about me. I'll be happy to help show you around, in return for some pets and belly scratches of course!
