(Editor’s note: This piece by Codman Community Farms farmer Pete Lowy first appeared in the CCF monthly newsletter sent to members in late November 2020.)

This past week the farm said goodbye to one of our most treasured friends, Toby the livestock guardian dog. Toby was diagnosed with a severe case of heartworm last year, despite his being on heartworm meds his entire life. Over the past year and despite our best efforts at treating it, he slowly became weaker this fall and we decided it was time to say goodbye to him. It was a sad day for all of us. 

In 2016, when I started working at Codman, Toby was one of the very first “hires” we made. We knew that we needed a livestock guardian dog if we were going to be growing chickens on pasture and Toby was the best of the best from the farm we bought him from.

From the beginning, he was gentle but strong and he knew what his job was, and he protected those birds like nobody’s business. We were worried those first few months that having a dog living 24/7 on a field might be an issue for some in town and were concerned it might become a liability at some point. But like all the firsts that occurred in 2016, our first year of changing the way Codman ran as a farm, we needed to stay the course with our farm plans and deal with all that would be thrown at us. Change is hard for many and we were changing a lot.

But to our great surprise, Toby actually became an ambassador of sorts. Folks all around town just loved seeing him roaming the fields, guarding the chickens, chasing hawks, and being a white beacon of strength and love out there with the birds. He was instrumental in calming people’s fears of all of the changes taking place. We received many curious questions about him and folks just wanted to go out to the field to pet him, give him a treat, or just be around him. He was an amazing and unexpected gift that I would never have imagined possible.

He wasn’t perfect — he ran away at times, he could be naughty and stubborn like many livestock guardian dogs, and he definitely had a mind of his own which I could never quite figure out. But we all didn’t just love him out there because he was any old dog, it was because he was Toby. He was beautiful and kind and had the thickest lushest fur-ever. And those paws… wow, like a beast! Huge. Yet for those who knew him well, he would just as quickly roll over on his back for a belly rub, or reach up to smell your face-his way of kissing- then he would be to chase down an approaching coyote or a leap at a hawk sailing a bit too close to the flock. He was confident but not cocky, sweet but not too much of a pushover. He was Toby, and we will miss him forever.

While we will eternally miss Toby, we must move on to run the farm and keep the poultry safe from predators. After a lengthy and very lucky search, we found another Akbash livestock guardian dog that was born this past July at a farm in Michigan. So I am happy to introduce you to Sophie who will join the farm in late spring 2021! Sophie will remain in Michigan to begin her training and so she can mature a bit more with her family and gain the necessary skills to be ready to work when she arrives at the farm next year. We are all looking forward to meeting her and hoping that she is as great a dog as Toby was. She has big shoes to fill!