Livestock guardian guards free range birds. #maremma #freerange #livestockguardiandog

Surveillance footage of Stella our maremma ignoring birds while they peck around her. She doesn’t react to squawking and squabbling, flapping and other activities that are prone to triggering a chase response.
Birds are the most challenging livestock to bond with livestock guardians because they are flappy and noisy and less easy for the dogs to relate to and more prone to triggering chase responses in adolescent dogs.
Our other maremma is in his adolescent period and needs to be supervised with the birds although he is improving.
Stella is 20 months old. We got her as a rescue at 12 months and she was homeless and starving. She’s done very well. She most likely had exposure to birds as a pup because she is very settled or at the least her livestock guardian instincts are very well tuned.