DarZu27

Will you be using any camels or guard dogs?

Last summer my sister rode a horse around Mongolia for ~5 months. She thought having a guard dog was very worth while. Before she got a dog, her horse got stolen in the night once (and luckily reclaimed later.) She wrote up her thoughts here with another traveler she met here: http://www.thelongridersguild.com/stories/w-mongolia.htm and a newspaper interview here: http://www.valleyrecord.com/life/duvall-traveler-returns-from-five-month-journey-across-mongolia/

Also she fell in love with camels while in Mongolia. Wasn't expecting to use any, but she says they have the best, quirkiest personalities. :)

She'd probably be happy to offer tips & contacts if you need any!

EDIT: As others pointed out, experience with horses seems important to consider. My sister had been riding regularly for >10 years before this trip.

She also did quite a bit of staying with locals. Probably the majority of days she was invited to meals with nomads she met, despite it being a sparsely populated area. They're a very hospitable culture. She found the dogs weren't much of a problem because it was fairly normal for locals to use dogs in the same way. Her experience was that the piece of mind of sleeping with the dogs was definitely worth it. I think at one point before they got dogs someone stole one of their horses in the night. They were able to get it back by finding and confronting the person (who eventually gave it back after paying some money. Apparently that kind of thing is common.) The dogs alerted them quite a few times to strangers or other animals at night.

Another write up of her trip is here: http://www.valleyrecord.com/life/duvall-traveler-returns-from-five-month-journey-across-mongolia/

good catch. I would trust her blog over my memory, haha