Parka is maturing into his guardian role. Here is a short video of him reacting to some strangeness outside:
He’s very forward with his guarding, it’s very impressive in such a young pup. He really shows what good temperament selection and testing can produce! We couldn’t be happier with Parka! 🙂
I’m a little late sharing this story, but it’s a good one. Back in May on a Saturday I took Parka out on his first hike. We live at the base of the Southern Rockies and I spend a good amount of my time hiking the mountains. I had wanted to get Parka out on the trails for a few weeks, to get him used to hiking with me, and finally I got some time to do it. We hiked a trail called the North Boundary Trail, it’s a trail that starts close to town but snakes up into the mountains to a big meadow at about 11,000 feet.
So Parka and I were on the North Boundary trail, we had been hiking for about 2 hours. We stopped and took some pictures, then I decided we should turn around before it started to get dark. This whole hike Parka had been very alert and watchful, but I thought nothing of it (he’s a guardian, after all)…
Well, about 30 minutes after we turned to head back, as we were going around a blind ridge, Parka stopped dead. His eyes got very large, his nostrils got very large, and his lips started to wrinkle – then he let out a very deep growl. I figured it was due to a person coming toward us on the trail or something, so I reached for my treats to redirect Parka and move off the trail. While I was looking down in the treat bag Parka does this massive display – growling, barking, and dragging me forward (I almost lost my balance)…
Then out shot a Mountain Lion!!! It ran up the mountain away from us, it was apparently hanging out behind a rock on the ridge to the left (about 4 feet above the trail)… If we had walked by we would have walked right under him!!!
At first I thought it was a deer or something, but then I could see his long tail, and he clearly didn’t move like a deer or a Coyote. Crazy. I mean, he could have jumped right out and got both of us! I had NO IDEA he was there.
Maybe the lion was just napping, or chilling out in the sun. I dunno. But it was a kinda close-call even if he didn’t want to eat us. This thing was BIG too… scary big.
Every year there is at least one person who is attacked by a cougar in this area (laster year the attack was only 15 minutes from our house)… I gotta wonder, if it wasn’t for Parka, would we have been one of those victims this year?
I take dogs with me on hikes a lot, and always thought they might be useful in a situation like this, but I never thought it’d actually happen. I’m so proud of Mr. Parka, he did his job!
I don’t typically buy into much of the text written about a breed’s history, especially with these recreated breeds, but I’ll admit it: there is something rather romantic about my Boerboel protecting me from a lion!
Here are some short videos from Parka’s puppy class this past weekend. He did really well. This was his 2nd time in class, he’s very good with the other pups and people (tho some of the people are not comfortable with him for whatever reason)…