With the ongoing Mongolian parliament elections, preparations for ASEM (Asia/ Europe meeting) and the upcoming Naadam festival, it has been a hectic  few weeks for all of Mongolia. The MBDP has been busy keeping up with the health of our dogs. Along with Baavgai's eye surgery, Red Scarf has gotten blisters Along her ears, Blimpy needed to have some dread locks brushed out, the pups needed dewormer and khuder needed to be vaccinated. At first, the thought of vaccinating khuder was more then a little frightening, and not because I had never administered a vaccination. Khuder was previously owned by a local, who had raised him to be a ferocious dog that wanted to shred and murder everything and anything that came within earshot. Here is a picture from several months ago...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/soyolbold/16403111035/in/album-72157650146319720/#


We have since adopted Khuder for breeding as he is a spectacular looking dog with perfect confirmation and athletic build. We strongly believed we could rehabilitate him to be a social friendly dog. The first change we made was to take him off his chain and give him a fenced off area
to run around in. Eventually we began to see his behavior change as I spent more and more time with him. Simply by acting confident and calm around Khuder, and using positive reinforcement when he showed appropriate behavior he quickly softened his gaze towards people. After consistently seeing no aggression and only signs that he wanted to socialize, I was ready interact face to face.

And here he is, a lovable goofy dog that loves to play and occasionally becomes ferocious towards strangers and the other male dogs.

We may never be able to trust him completely with strangers or those who do not respect dog behavior, but I feel totally confident around him myself. Khuder is an intelligent dog who I've learned to trust but I also respect certain boundaries and know not to get between him and someone he isn't fond of. Given some safety precautions, Vaccinating him was no problem at all, in fact he was better behaved than our other dogs. Soon I will be ready to take him out on lead for a run, hopefully to burn 

off some of his excess energy. And before I leave for the US, we will socialize him with his breeding pair. 

I will also try to get a height and weight for Khuder next visit. He is likely our largest dog, giving Baavgai a run for his money.

Besides that, we have set up our second ger for Greg and Baagii to live in. We posted some official looking informative signs around our property...

And we are on the grid! Outfitted our caretakers ger with a solar system to power his fridge, Tv and satellite dish. His whole family was thrilled to have tv and lights once again. Coming from the city, they were happy to be living in the countryside, but they probably missed the luxuries of the city like electricity. 

The whole family, 6 kids included gathered around the tv to watch Mongolian Elvis Presley.

 Except for Batkhilden...

Here are some pictures from our new location. Our caretaker, Miga has two kids of his own but is currently looking after his nieces and nephews. I still have no clue which are his, except for the girl, Nomim, pictured here rolling out some dough. 

I'm happy to share that our caretakers family is using cow dung for fuel as opposed to coal. And in the background of the picture, an injured goat that's being cared for. 

Remember our goopy eye'd dog Baavgai? He finally got the surgery to help him keep his eye drained. He looks a bit funny with the Elizabethan collar and was acting a bit loopy from the sedatives but he's recovering quickly.

Last week Greg and Baagii traveled to the South Gobi to place more pups with nomadic families. This time the MBDP is working with WCS of Mongolia in an effort to help their sustainable cashmere program. Pictures and an update of the placement to come upon their return.

In the meantime, I have been moving the last of our supplies from the old facilities in Gaachurt to the new location. My first time disassembling a ger was more intricate then I had imagined and larger. I managed to fit everything but the floor and a few pieces of furniture into our Delica van...

Disassembled ger...

Almost all packed up...

Moving to green pasture...

After a second trip to collect the flooring, I spent a day with the dogs, organized the ger that's up already and begun leveling the ground for our second ger.

For roughly two weeks, our OEX and MBDP overland group travelled from the south gobi, up through Ick Bogd mountain to Khakhorum, then east to Khustai National Park and finishing of course in the capital, UlaanBaatar.

Along our way we met with MBDP host families, conducting interviews, weighing our bankhar, and administering dewormer.

Furthermore we kept our eyes out for suitable bankhar dogs to take DNA samples from. The further  from the city we travelled the more prevalent the bankhar were.

The story of our two week driving tour can be told much more thoroughly through the eyes of the writers and journalists who joined us. I will post links to their blogs and articles as they are published.

We were lucky enough to be joined by Jomarie Fecci who has written a small piece about our trip. And intends to have a article published in the future detailing parts of the expedition. Check out her  page here.

Once we returned to the city, we bid the OEX team and our group of travelers farewell. It was a fantastic group and sad to split up.

I stayed on in Mongolia to help Greg and Baagi with the Bankar dog project. I was soon thrown back into the chaos and riff raff of UB. Never a boring day here...

Sheared tranny gear means I get to spend the day hunting for a used replacement to get our Delica
rolling...

Transmission and engine rebuilds at the vehicle market...

Getting very confused looks as I do carpentry work in the hardware store...

Junkyard puppies...



Kazakh band at the Naran Tuul market...

I've returned to Mongolia for the summer and to start it off, the MBDP is joining Overland Experts for two weeks of overlanding throughout Mongolia.

A map of the projected route which starts off headed South to the Gobi where we will visit MBDP host families and finishes in Khustai park, another placement site.

The group included the founder of the MBDP, Bruce Elfstrom as well as the project manager, Douglas Lally, and media specialist Petra Elfstrom. Others included Erik Eisensmith of OEX and Oaklea Elfstrom who has been a part of the project from its start. Everyone remaining who joined us were travelers and adventurers who have a special interest in overlanding or the MBDP.

I was unable to join the group at the start of the trip and arrived a day late to Mongolia. This meant that by the time I had arrived in UB, the group was six hours south driving through Mendelgovi where they would be staying the night. I had to catch transportation from UB to the province capital Dalanzadgad in the South Gobi, passing the group along the way so I could meet them the following day.

Of course things did not go as planned. I had missed the government sanctioned bus with your very own reclining seat and seat belts to match. So after an hour or so of running frantically around the
city, making phone calls, looking for anyone who may be heading south. A friend called me back with news of a microbus headed to DZ. Taking this microbus meant cramming 12 people (plus a baby or two) and luggage into a space designed for 9 people. Eight hours later at 5am, muscles cramped and holding someone else's baby, I arrived in Dalanzadgad.

Luckily I had made friends and was invited for some food, a nap, a hot shower and vodka. Feeling rested, a little drunk and certain I was in Mongolia. I patiently awaited the arrival of the OEX caravan.

Expedition Portal has published an article, written by Petra Elfstrom, about the Mongolian Bankhar Dog Project! Check it out here http://expeditionportal.com/the-mongolian-bankhar-dog/

Dreds

Spork

Baavgai (Bear)

Arslan (Lion)

(Photos By Soyolbolod Serguleng)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/soyolbold/

Zara Morris-Trainor from the University of Aberdeen, is doing her PhD research on the impact of cashmere production on wild prey and snow leopards in the the protected area of the Tost Mountain in the South Gobi. For the past few months she has been studying grazing patterns of domesticated ungulates, collecting survey's from the local nomads that live there and attempting to observe grazing patterns of wild ungulates and the territory of wild prey. Her goal is to familiarize herself with the Toast area and make a plan of action to help restore the pasture lands to a healthier state. The Mongolian Bankhar Dog Project was lucky enough to be accompanied by Zara a few months ago when we drove down to the Gobi to check on our pups. And she was lucky enough to see one of pups in action, guarding the sheep and goats. To learn more about Zara's research check out her blog, Goats and Gers. She has some amazing stories to tell and pictures to go along. Here are a few of her photo's from her trip with the MBDP...

The Golden Gobi...

 Can you spot out pup?

The pup is too far away in this picture but she's in there with the sheep!

Pictures by Zara Morris-Trainor

A great blog post by our Project Specialist and Social Media Coordinator, Petra Elfstrom. Check it out for some insight into Livestock Guardian Dogs and how they are a non-lethal approach to removing predators and protecting your livestock...

http://adkforeverwild.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-livestock-guardian-dog-tool-for.html

The Mongolian Bankhar Dog Project​ has a Ted Talk! Check out the founder, Bruce Elfstrom talk about the project to learn more about what we are doing.

www.beautiful-lands.com Has also wrote a piece on our project check it out here.

Lastly take a look at our fundraising video to see some footage of what I've been doing for the past 8 months!

Our recent July trip to the Gobi had us checking up on the pups we placed there 3 weeks earlier. We set out in our dependable Russian Furgon, appropriately named "Ivan the Terrible", for we could always depend on it to breakdown. Nonetheless Doug, Greg, our translator and myself confidently headed to the GPS locations marking there Ger locations...

Alas when we showed up to an empty mountain valley, we quickly remembered the Nomads and their tendency to move... After several stops at neighboring gers to ask directions, we eventually found our old friend Sugar!

Sugar is the community leader for his district and showed a lot of promise as a host for our project dog. He had previously owned dogs that would follow the herd and has won many awards for his husbandry practices.

So visiting him again was exciting, we looked forward to seeing his progress with the pup who was close to 7 months old at this point.

 As we rolled up to his ger, we immediately spotted the pup hanging among the sheep. And after saying our hello's and sain baina uu's, we watched sugar herd his livestock to the pasture with our pup walking in and around the sheep.

It has been really difficult to work with the herders here. They do not take advice from young foreign strangers often, especially if they think they know more then you. This has been one of the most difficult hurdles to overcome. Seeing Sugar using his new pup in an effective working manor was incredible and we are hoping we can rely on his influence and wisdom to pass our message along to other herders in the area and maybe all over Mongolia.

After eight grueling months of Mongolia, its finally time for me to go home. But the project of course will continue. We are very excited to have Greg Goodfellow, the project scientist take over on the ground in Mongolia. As a biologist he has a lot to offer to the project and has already approached it at a scientific level to further our development. As Doug and I leave Mongolia for other endeavors, Greg will take our place, battling the day to day life of Mongolia. The short time I had to work with Greg was memorable and I look forward to following the progress from home in the states. Best of luck Greg!

Also don't forget to check out the MBDP website at http://bankhar.org/ 

AND take a look at the fundraising campaign here http://igg.me/at/bankhar

Please take a minute to share our Indiegogo fundraising page with friends and family, and consider donating to the cause. All funds go directly to the project to feed and care for the dogs.