Zaltana Anatolians

A Kobold (Troll) having fun

Kobi is my Jack Russell Terrier. One of the many things he does for fun is playing with the garden hose. The first picture shows him actually picking up the end of the hose and having the water spray into his mouth, makes me wonder what he is thinking and why this is so much fun for him?

Anatolians and their friends

I currently have 5 dogs, 2 Anatolian Shepherds, 2 Great Pyrenees and one Jack Russell Terrier. I have never had that many dogs before, it's a lot of work especially since I got all but Nanuk in the last 9 months, which means they all needed training to understand what I want them to do, they also all need grooming which means all of them have to learn to let me do their nails, brush their teeth, clean their ears and let me do their coat care. So, I am spending a lot of time with my dogs doing all of the above. Oh, almost forgot, I take them on daily walks as well. The daily interactions with my little doggie pack are so much fun, they are all individuals and I just love to see the interactions with each other. Ayla my 11 months old Anatolian Shepherd loves her little Jack Russell Terrier buddy Kobi. The two of them never get tired of wrestling and pushing each others buttons. Kobi, the terrier is quite feisty. The second picture shows Ayla with Nanuk. I think it's safe to say that Ayla has always had a crush on him, he is such a big and handsome fella. As she was growing up he has always pretty much ignored her, and when she got too much into his face he used to be quite grumpy about it. All that has changed since she came into heat last month. He now treats her like a gentleman and always takes her side when Leydi, my other Anatolian plays too rough with Ayla.

The third picture shows Ayla visiting her Leonberger friends in Las Vegas, Mikey likes to get his feet wet, but Ayla couldn't be convinced that walking out into the pool was such a good idea.

The next picture shows my two Anatolian Shepherd girls demonstrating "girl power" or is it just "girls just wanna have fun"? Both share a passion for wrestling and racing around at full speed.

The next picture shows Ayla as a puppy with my senior Great Pyrenees Zazou, who was a very patient baby sitter. Ayla is now much taller than he is, and thanks to the other dogs, she no longer bugs him to wrestle with her.

The last two pictures show my Anatolian girls with Michael. He came here for a two week vacation from the big city while his mom is out of town. They gave him a big welcome, and then took him for a tour to show him around.

Queen of the straw bale

What's Leydi looking at here?










Can I come up too?













The Queen of the Strawbale, here Ayla is sitting atop 3 bales stacked on top of each other. I don't have any livestock at this time, so when I started piling up straw bales around the property my neighbors were very curious. One by one they would stop by and ask me what I was doing with the strawbales. They seemed a little surprised about my answer, that I got the bales for the dogs, for shade, for protection from the wind, and just for fun to climb around on it.



Ever since Ayla was a little puppy she loved to climb on the bales to take a look from a higher place. When she was just 5 months old she surprised both me and herself by scaling 3 bales stacked on top of each other. When I saw her trying I thought "no way is she able to get up on this", but she got up without much of a problem. Now this was one bale higher than what she was used to, so once she was up there, she looked at me "how am I going to get down?". It took her several minutes to attempt coming down. She never just jumps off, she always lowers herself down with her front as much as possible first before she gets down. She is quite an athlete when it comes to straw bale activities, now almost 11 months old, she comes running up to the bales and jumps up, which sometimes causes the bales to look like they will fall off the top, but Ayla has learned to keep her balance in all this and is totally unshaken about the unstable bales, she just wiggles around with it until it's all stable again. I am curious to see if she can entice anybody else to climb to the top.

Isn't he just precious!

My Great Pyrenees Nanuk, 5 years old.

The apple thief





Here is the evidence, the lone little apple that was growing on one of my apple trees that I had planted last fall.
I saw it when it happened, it was the same dog that also picked the 4 apples from my other apple tree. I got to eat one of them, because it wasn't so badly damaged. This latest one was too small to be eaten. So guess who did it? Was it one of
these sleeping beauties here?
Or was it this friendly looking girl?













Well, it was the red head, looking quite pleased with herself.

Patience pays off!












Leydi, the red Anatolian in the forground has a rawhide chewie. Ayla, the girl in the background wants the chewie and is waiting patiently for the moment when she can steal it. She knows that eventually Leydi will get up to bark at something, take a drink or something else to leave that chewie unattended long enough for her to take it. In the second picture Ayla can be seen apparantly innocently contemplating the world. In reality she is hoping that Leydi will get up so she can get that rawhide.





The wait paid off. I actually missed the moment when she took possession of the chewie. She is very satisfied with herself here, chewing a small piece that came out from the rolled up rawhide, the rest of it isn't visible on the picture, it's between her paws.

Anatolians and small dogs
Kobi is my first small dog. In the beginning I was really worried about the big dogs stepping on him or otherwise injuring him. Ayla was just 4 months old when I got Kobi. The two of them often play wildly and it took me a long time to relax about their rough play. Ayla just knows how to be careful about not hurting him. When Leydi joined us I was glad that she had been raised around
small terriers as well. From the moment she met Kobi she seemed to be fascinated with him. And she just loves to push his buttons. He acts like a ferocious little thing when the other dogs nudge him or put a paw on him, but it's really all just for fun.
A few times I have also let Kobi play outside with both of my Anatolian girls, it's amazing to watch, even in all the running and wrestling the two big girls are extremely careful not to step on the little dog running along. Like most small dogs, he seems to be oblivious to the fact that he is so much smaller than they are. What's really funny is when he picks up the giant dog size rawhide chewies and carries them off to munch on them. I haven't been able to take a picture of it yet, so that will come later.

Nanuk, my best buddy
Nanuk is my 5 year old male Great Pyrenees, he and I love to go outdoors and explore together. This boy is very special to me, because we have come along such a long way from when he first came to me. What I especially love about him is how he communicates with me. He has learned to make me aware of things that he finds interesting, so he will stand and try to get me to notice he is looking at me, when I ask "show me what it is", he takes off wherever he wanted to go, making sure I am following. Most of the time it's just a particular shrub or tree he wants to sniff. Their world of smells must be so amazing.

These pictures were taken this spring near Tecopa, CA which is near Death Valley National Park, while we were in Tecopa, we also visited the China Ranch Date Farm. We took a walk amongst the different varieties of date palms and sampled their delicious date nut bread.
Nanuk and I have been to many different places here in Southern Nevada. While he can't talk, it truly feels like he is sharing my passion for this beautiful place. He never gets impatient when I stop a million times to take pictures, in return I wait when he is busy checking things out that he finds interesting. He is my best buddy.

More Girl Stuff

Here are some pics of my girls Ayla and Leydi doing what they love best - playing chase, this is actually a little series of pictures. The first one shows Ayla approaching Leydi in a stalking type approach, of course Leydi is aware of the intentions and is ready for the chase to begin.




The chase is on - off they go!

That was fun!

Girls having fun

Here are some pictures of my two Anatolian girls having fun. The pinto colored one is 10 months old Ayla and the red one is Leydi. They can be seen here playing with a rope toy. These two girls are getting along well so far, they love to race around. Leydi at just over 100 lbs is a very athletic and powerful dog. It is amazing to watch her accelerate from standing to running full speed in a matter of a few seconds. Ayla on the other hand is a teenager, she only weighs around 80 lbs right now, she doesn't accelerate the way Leydi does from a standing position, but once she is in motion, she is able to run much faster than Leydi. It seems she can effortlessly get ahead, then she slows to let Leydi catch up a little only to run off again. It's certainly fun to watch them.

Ayla the trick dog

Ayla my Anatolian Shepherd Dog is almost 11 months old now, she has learned quite a few tricks since she has been with me. Most of them were her own ideas and I have just reinforced them and put them on cue (for more about clicker training please visit my website www.anatolians-of-zaltana.com ). The first picture shows Ayla holding up her paw. She will also bow on cue, but I don't have a picture of that yet, because she hasn't learned yet to do it while I am standing far enough back to take a picture

while she does it.
She is also doing a still pretty clumsy version of sitting pretty. When she was little she would do it and then lose her balance and fall backwards, with an expression of utter surprise on her cute little face. She doesn't fall over anymore, but we are still working on getting her to learn to hold the position. This seems to be pretty difficult as she has grown from a little 30 lbs puppy to a 80+ lbs adolescent in such a short time. The second picture shows a clumsy sit pretty attempt. She loves to do it though, so I am thinking that once she is a little more mature she will figure out how to keep her balance.
What I find particularly interesting is that she is using her tricks shown here with the other dogs too, when she wants attention from them. She doesn't seem to realize that tricks that humans find amusing may not have a lot of meaning to other dogs.

Ayla using her paws

Ayla was chewing a rawhide chewie when I noticed her holding it very expertly with her paws. Not all dogs are that good with using their paws to hold items. So I whipped out my camera to take a picture of it.