Urbigkit’s guardian dog book released

Many children are familiar with working dogs such as guide dogs and guard dogs, but they may not know anything about how valuable guardian dogs are to sheep ranches. Now, with Cat Urbigkit’s “Brave Dogs, Gentle Dogs: How They Guard Sheep,” available in April from Boyds Mills Press, children throughout the country can discover the lifelong bond formed between sheep and the guardian dogs that watch over them.

As puppies, the guardian dogs are placed in fleece and learn to identify with the smell of sheep. They soon meet their first lambs and come to mingle with the flock. With little training, the dogs instinctively know that their job is to keep a lookout for predators, and now and then do some baby-sitting.

Examiner reporter Urbigkit’s engaging photo essay includes full-color photographs of puppies and lambs, dogs and sheep as they intermingle and come to depend on one another. She explains how guardian dogs have been used for thousands of years in other countries, and how ranchers brought them to the Rocky Mountains about 30 years ago. Since then, they have protected livestock against such predators as grizzly bears and gray wolves.

Urbigkit has made it her priority to write factual books for children that promote positive views of agriculture in the United States. “Brave Dogs, Gentle Dogs” is her first children’s book, published by Boyds Mills Press of Honesdale, Pa. The book can be ordered from any bookstore or on the Internet. Signed copies of the book are available in the Sublette Examiner office in Pinedale for $16.