‘Exploding demand' for grass-fed meat is saving lamb market and giving dogs jobs

The relationship between shepherds and their dogs is one of the longest-running stories in human history. But in the US, that story paused for a while and almost looked like it might come to an end. Since the second world war, by and large, Americans have stopped eating sheep.

In 1945, there were 55 million head of sheep in the US. By 2013, there was around a tenth of that number. The decline in the demand for wool led to some of the liquidation of the sheep flock, but so did changing food tastes. Americans used to eat upwards of 4lbs of lamb in any given year, but now two out of three don’t eat any at all.

The consumers who still eat lamb are a now a small niche market, incorporating immigrants from countries where lamb is a staple and foodies in search of pasture-raised authenticity. Demand is slowly regaining strength, along with a growing consciousness about the provenance of animals and the conditions they’re raised under.

Michelle Canfield, sheep farmer, with Bronte (right) and Moses . Photograph: Jason Wilson for The Guardian

For farmers like Michelle Canfield, who since 2008 has run a small herd of sheep near Snohomish, Washington, it brings both opportunities and constraints.

First, she runs “shedding sheep”, which drop their hair, meaning she doesn’t have to pay to shear them. Hers are Katahdin Hair Sheep, first developed in Maine and prized for their prolific lambing and easy-care characteristics.

Second, the absence of a USDA-approved slaughterhouse close by means that if you want to eat her sheep, you have to take them away and get them butchered yourself. She doesn’t have a problem selling them – Seattle is close by, she says, where “the Muslim market is huge” (she says it is thanks to the number of migrants who have moved to work in the tech industry).

As much as any other foodies, this highly educated clientele “want their grass-fed, natural, local meat, but they want to do their own slaughter, and make sure it’s Halal”.

This “exploding demand” for strictly grass-fed animals means that she has to leave the flocks out in the fields full time, including overnight. In turn, the animals are vulnerable to predators, particularly in lambing season. The most dangerous, persistent and clever predator of lambs is the coyote.

Canfield tried llamas as guardian animals, and they worked for a while, but the coytoes worked out how to get around them at the same time her border collies did. She started to take losses.

Lockjaw traps are illegal, and poison is fraught with risks, so she needed another solution.

This is where Moses and Bronte came in. Both dogs are around eight years old, weigh in well over 100 pounds and are off-white in colour (so they can be distinguished from predators). Each is descended from two different ancient lines of livestock guardian dogs.

Moses (left) and Bronte resting in the grass. Photograph: Jason Wilson for The Guardian

Bronte, the Maremma, was the first dog Canfield adopted . Maremmas are an ancient central Italian breed, created to protect the flocks of Abruzzo, Tuscany and Lazio, a job they still do in a country where wolves are present and protected.

Bronte had been raised in the traditional manner of guardian sheepdogs, in a barn with sheep to whom she was bonded. She loved Canfield’s flock, but she had to learn to cool her exuberance. “She tried to play with them, she’d want to wrestle with them, even the lambs.” She was challenging and wilful. “She went feral for a while and I had to retame her with food.”

It worked, and now Bronte attends to the flocks dutifully and gently. She looks and acts a little like an oversized Golden Retriever, one who “perceives the sheep as her primary peer group”.

To keep her company, and to help at the times when they needed to split up the flocks, they got Moses, a Kuvasz. They are a Hungarian breed whose precise origins are lost in time, but who are said to have arrived with the Magyars in the Carpathian Valley some 4,000 years ago.

Kuvasz almost disappeared in the second world war, when many were killed by German or Russian soldiers for protecting their families. There were revived, and now they are another part of the array of working dogs available to livestock ranchers.

Moses was a failed show dog; he was too reactive and grumpy for the ring. When Canfield acquired him, she quickly realised what the problem was: “He’s terribly far-sighted. He was growly at dog shows because everything up close was just a jumble of stuff. He’s worked out well here.” The fact that he has learned to be a guardian despite not being raised as one is a tribute to Canfield’s training.

While other breeds of guardian dogs might be more assertive and aggressive, these two mostly get the job done with their booming barks. A bark is enough to warn Canfield (“I’ve learned to tell which kind of bark means trouble”) and is also enough to scare off a coyote. They haven’t yet had to physically tangle with a predator.

Looking to the future, Canfield worries about wolves. “We’ll see how quickly they make it out here”, she says. Reintroduced in Idaho and the still-protected apex predator, wolves are slowly making their way west of the ranges. They’re already in western Oregon, and one day, perhaps, they will show up in her corner of Washington.

Perhaps the same conflicts that have played out in eastern Oregon and Washington between conservationists and ranchers will play out closer to the big cities of the Pacific Northwest, or maybe by then new techniques and new dogs will provide a solution.

For now, these two dogs are happy sleeping, living and eating with their flocks. Soon, Canfield will introduce a new puppy who will learn from them – which is how a tradition as old as domestication itself will be renewed.