About McCarthy Ranchette LLC
Thoughtful breeding, working livestock guardians, and a commitment to animal health.
McCarthy Ranchette LLC is a small-scale ranchette in San Diego County, California, raising Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dogs, Olde English Southdown Babydoll Sheep, and Katahdin Hair Sheep.
Our approach is that we believe responsible breeding requires more than producing animals with desirable pedigrees. Health, temperament, structure, genetics, working ability, and the quality of life we provide our animals all matter.
Our Great Pyrenees
Our Great Pyrenees are both working livestock guardians and valued members of our family.
They live full-time with our sheep and spend their lives doing the work the breed was developed to do. At the same time, they are regularly handled, travel with us, participate in activities away from the ranch, and spend considerable time with our family while we work outside.
Over the years, our dogs have maintained zero livestock loss while working on our property. We have personally watched them deter coyotes, bobcats, snakes, hawks, and unfamiliar dogs. We have also received eyewitness reports of a mountain lion traveling through the property.
Working ability is only one part of our breeding program.
We health test our breeding dogs, evaluate temperament, consider genetic diversity and carefully select breeding pairs. We also participate in conformation events because we believe sound structure matters in a large working breed expected to remain active for many years.
Our goals are to produce Pyrenees with the health, structure, temperament and instincts necessary to become sound representatives of the breed.
Thoughtful Puppy Placement
We do not place puppies according to who joined a waiting list first or who chooses a puppy first.
Every puppy is an individual.
When considering a home, we want to understand the buyer's lifestyle, property, animals, experience and expectations. We evaluate our puppies as they develop and use temperament assessment as one part of determining which puppy may be best suited to each approved home.
Our goal is a successful lifelong placement and not simply a puppy sale.
Our Sheep
We raise both registered Olde English Southdown Babydoll Sheep and registered Katahdin Hair Sheep.
Although these are very different breeds, our philosophy is the same with both: make breeding decisions deliberately and maintain a healthy flock.
We select for the qualities that matter within each breed, including temperament, structure, maternal ability, hardiness, health, parasite resistance and other measurable genetic traits when appropriate.
Biosecurity is also an important part of our flock-management program. We use veterinary laboratory testing and genetic information to help us make informed breeding and purchasing decisions and to reduce preventable risks within our flock.
Detailed information about our testing, registrations, genetics and individual breeding animals can be found on our Babydoll and Katahdin pages.
Why We Do It This Way
We believe breeders have a responsibility to think beyond the next litter or lamb crop.
A breeding decision can influence an animal, its future offspring and the families or farms that depend on those animals for years to come.
That is why we continue learning, testing, evaluating and improving our program.
We are proud of the animals we raise, but we also believe in being transparent about what goes into raising them.
Whether you are coming for quality Great Pyrenees or breeding-quality sheep, or simply information, we want you to leave better informed and confident about the decisions they are making.
Welcome to McCarthy Ranchette LLC
We appreciate the opportunity to share our animals and our program with you.
Explore the rest of our website to meet our Great Pyrenees, learn about our Babydoll and Katahdin flocks, review our health and genetic testing, and learn more about upcoming puppies and lambs.
