PROTECTING AGAINST WOLVES IN CENTRAL PORTUGAL - BUYING A LIVESTOCK GUARDIAN DOG AT SERRA DA ESTRELA

Hi there! I am Joseph.
I have been an immigrant, or expat, living in central Portugal along with my beautiful girlfriend Mariana for six years now.

Together Mariana, my father Clinton and myself, would like to show you a bit of the daily goings on around our Portuguese farm / homestead / smallholding and all of the work we are doing whilst renovating, starting building projects, working with our livestock, DIY and trying to grow our little families own food!

In this episode we welcome you to join us in mid Autumn as we visit and give you a virtual tour of a multi award winning breeders kennel for Serra da Estrela livestock guardian dogs (LGD). The breed of dog is absolutely amazing at protecting livestock and comes from our region here in Portugal, the Serra da Estrela mountain range.

The breed was originally bred to protect sheep and goats from wolves, there used to be a very prominent population of wolf here in central Portugal. Now with the governments help they are being reintroduced and our zone here actually has a breeding population of wild Iberian wolves, which have been spotted nearby on wildlife cameras. To deter the wolves from attacking sheep or goats and keep farmers from hurting the wolf population local farmers are able to apply to get Serra da Estrela puppies to live in with their livestock and guard and protect the flock from wild dogs and wolves that roam around the region.

Miguel, Tish & I are shown around the kennel by the owners Alfredo and Isabel. We were honoured to be shown all their award winning dogs and we all fell in love with them. It was amazing to see how ferocious the dogs can seem as they defend their owners from the new arrivals (us) but as soon as they saw we were friendly and not a threat they could not wait to run up, give us a hug and a kiss and receive LOTS of strokes!

We were shown all the male puppies and were given a run down of what we should look for in the puppy when making a selection. Miguel and Tish are going to choose a male puppy for their mill houses that appeared in last weeks video. A big beautiful guardian dog that will definitely keep them and their livestock safe from the wolves and wild boar that live in the woodland by their farm.

After viewing the available dogs and being told what we should be looking for in the dogs for sale we were taken into Alfredo's trophy room, a room filled with trophies and rosettes from shows that he has entered his dogs into. I highly recommend Isabel and Alfredo if anyone is looking to buy a Serra da Estrela dog. Their contact information can be found in the video at numerous points.

Once we left and said goodbye to Alfredo, Isabel and the dogs we return to our farm, where I talk a bit about Mitzy, our dog, how she is doing now after the wild dog attack and her progress, fortunately she is doing well and now has her stitches out, she is back out on the farm, but only on a lead to make sure she does not get into too much trouble. We walk her up to the sheep pastures and back to the farm house again, where I then lit a nice fire in my lounge, prepared some roasted chestnuts and had a nice glass of jeropiga, for it was the 11th of November, dia da sao Martinho, or saint Martins day. A day where traditionally the Portuguese roast chestnuts, drink some jeropiga and sit by the fire with family... Sounds splendid to me.

At the end of the day I sat by the fire with Mitzy, explained a little about the goings on this week on the farm. Spoke a little about Mariana and how she is coping in the late stages of her pregnancy. I thank you all once again for your wonderful well wishes for both Mariana and Mitzy and bid you all a fantastic week. See you next time!

Once home I make a beautiful meal of sustainably farmed sea bream with an oriental sweet chilli dressing. After that Lilly and I make our way up to the olive grove where I speak about the weeks news on the farm and everything that has happened before saying goodbye.

See our journey to self sufficiency / permaculture / organic farming as expats living in Portugal, trying to produce as much of our own food planting vegetables, growing fruit trees as well as looking after all our animals, such as our chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks, quail, rabbits and sheep - Shortly pigs too!

Hobby farming in Fundão
Growing vegetables, raising meat and foraging on our cherry farm in Portugal’s Beira baixa.

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