Fredo, short for Alfredo, is our pure-bred Italian Maremma Livestock Guardian Dog.  He is the reason why we can let our animals roam free-range all day & night, throughout the year.  He is an absolutely tremendous coyote/dog deterrent,  and also does a fine job with the smaller predators such as foxes, fisher cats, skunks, and such. Not that we haven’t lost some birds here and there, at least we’ve avoided any whole scale massacres of our flock.   

     Born in 2004, our big guy began life as a complete chicken.  (Hence the same “Fredo”,,,a-fraid-o;   also the name of the younger stupid son in the movie “The Godfather”)  After a shaky year and a half, he has come on strong, and is now master of all he surveys.  The yard is HIS, the animals on it are HIS, and he doesn’t care for other animals coming onto HIS property and messing with HIS animals!  He also doesn’t care for human visitors, but “usually” restricts his discontent to barking. 

     We could not have had the success we’ve had so far without the services of this dog.  He stays outdoors day/night, even though we’ve tried to our best to keep him inside at night. (He has made it plain to us he’d rather be outside on patrol.  )  I would highly recommend the use of this breed of dog to protect livestock, but not necessarily as a house pet. 

Fredo, our Farm Dog!