Turkish Dogs - particularly Anatolian Shepherd Dogs

I am Beka's mom. this is what I wrote the day she was born:

Beka was an Anatolian Shepherd Dog. These dogs are from Turkey and are a rare breed. They are more known now as there was one in a movie a few years ago but I forget which one.

Anatalions are flock protection dogs. They aren't shepherds. In fact, when you need to use herding dogs, you need to take the anatolians out of the herd as they will kill the herding dogs, imagining that the herding dogs are trying to hurt the flock. These dogs sort of become a sheep (or whatever you have them living with). As my hubby puts it, they are like the "biggest, baddest, sheep around". The kinda walk around with the herd and hang out but if a wolf or other predator shows up, they become ferocious, but only doing what it takes to get the predator away. They don't leave the herd as that could leave the herd open to other predators.

Anatolians are so good at what they do, that they are now being used in Africa in the cheetah conservation project to protect the cheetahs. Pretty cool.

Now more personal, we got Beka at 8 weeks old, as a tiny puppy of about 35lbs. Yep, tiny at 35lbs. As an adult, Beka hovered around 125lbs. She wasn't fat. I may be short but it is still a large dog that I can pet without bending over. That was Beka.

As a true working dog, with a working dog ethic, she really didn't like playing or cuddling that much. She was happiest when she was near her flock (the family and our animals) and we were having fun. She loved new babies and my grandbaby was a joy to her. I am glad she met baby Nikki before she died. We got Beka when Sara was about 5 years old. They have a special bond. Sort of grew up together.

One story about Beka occured when Sam was born. Beka had this "big, goofy, dog" grin. Sam was born at home and so visitors came to the house. I was usually parked on the couch holding the baby. And Beka was usually sitting beside me on the floor. This put her body between me and the front door. It took us a while to realized that she was keeping the new baby safe because she always had her big, goofy, dog grin on. But she was always there when people came over. When it was just family, she was okay hanging out in other places.

Over the last few years, there have been a lot of coyote attacks near us. Almost everyone has lost an animal. Because of Beka, who wakes us up each time, we are the only ones who have not lost something. And we have the most animals by far. We even had a coyote with it's jaws on one of our chickens but it let go and ran because Beka warned us in time. And that chicken survived.

Beka was an incredible dog. I will miss her terribly.   

whoops. I wrote that the day she died, not the day she was born. I don't know how to edit my post though.   

Your post title says it all. There is no emotion like the death of a companion animal and no one can understand it until they've experienced it themself. 12 years is a blessing for such a large girl and I'm sure it must be because she had such a good life and good genes. Anatolians look like gorgeous dogs - we have very few of them in this part of the world so I've never met one - I'm sure Beka was one in a million.