What is this?

This is a project that’s been in my head for a good 5 years or more - an A-Z dictionary of Maremma terminology and information.

(Zombies, btw, is what your big floofs are barking at when you stagger out at dark o’clock to complete and utter silence … ).

I hope to create a new post twice a week (at least), eventually getting enough to compile into an actual book.

What’s my experience?

What’s my experience?

Th’Bloke and I moved to 47ha of mostly-bush near Goulburn, New South Wales (Australia) in 2006. Everyone said that you needed chooks to be self-sufficient, which was broadly the idea of the move, so we got some.

When you have chooks (and ducks and geese and guineafowl), you get foxes.

You can fence the buggers out - but wombats tend to giggle derisively as they tunnel under your fence, and the foxes chuckle gleefully as they follow the wombats through.

Enter the Maremma - one of the many Livestock Guardian Dog breeds in the world, and probably the most popular of the LGDs in Australia.

Bella and Pieta landed in our paddock as semi-rescues on the 2014 June long weekend. All of a sudden, we stopped losing birds to ALL the predators. Eagles and foxes included.

And I was in love.

Romeo arrived as a 3-month puppy in September 2016. And we were besotted.

Allevare Luciano travelled to us from Victoria, as part of our succession planning. Maremmas are now firmly entrenched in our lives, and I can’t see myself being on acreage without them ever again.

During the journey, I needed to learn a lot in a very short period of time. The Maremma Facebook groups and websites saved the dogs’ lives and my sanity on any number of occasions.

And, as I tend to retain stuff I’ve read on the things in which I’m interested … I have a lot of info sloshing around in my head.

And I like sharing info.

So here we are.

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