Livestock guardian dogs, or LGDs, and the importance of predatory behavior in LGDs as it relates to their role as working dogs will be the topic of a Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center in San Angelo webinar on Aug. 17.The free webinar will be on the Zoom meeting platform at 3 p.m. There is no cost to attend but participants must preregister on the LGD Facebook page or at tx.ag/Aug17LGDwebinar.
The webinar is part of an ongoing series focused on LGDs that features Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and industry experts covering a wide range of relevant topics.
Speaker, webinar focus
The guest speaker on Aug. 17 will be Kathryn Lord, Ph.D., postdoctoral associate in the Karlsson Lab at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
“This is a great opportunity for producers to learn firsthand about research that Dr. Lord and the late Dr. Raymond Coppinger performed with LGDs across the U.S.,” said Bill Costanzo, AgriLife Research livestock guardian dog specialist, San Angelo. “I am very excited to be able to have Dr. Lord present again to the producers who follow our program. Everyone learned so much from her last webinar in November that I invited her to give another webinar on the second phase of LGD development.”
Lord is a former student of Coppinger, who was a famous livestock guardian dog research professor. He was responsible for bringing LGDs from Europe in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Coppinger’s research with LGD behavior is still some of the most extensive work ever done, said Costanzo.
Lord’s main interest is in the evolutionary development of animal behavior, and its application to the management of domestic and wild species. Her research and publications have focused on the evolution, development and genetics of dog and wolf behavior.
Costanzo said he hopes the webinar leads to some shared DNA research on LGD behavior that could help answer questions about them and their role as livestock guardians.
