Any tips on training my new lgd pups?

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

Quote:
While I agree with what you posted, I beg to differ about that statement.
My big ole Lab may be the dumbest dog that I've ever owned, AND also the most "prey/fetch" driven, but he DEFINITELY knows the difference between frizbees and chickens.

Again, I'm not saying you should encourage prey games of fetch with a LGD, no way. I totally agree about not encouraging those things....just sayin if my dumb dog can figure it out, surely your "smart" LGD can

Prey drive is a real drive of any wild canine. Its what tells them to seek and destroy in order to get food. Play drive is what a dog uses to play with a toy, its mostly a learned behavior. I'll explain further. The urge to chase and bite another animal is a deadly and serious drive. It's still in most breeds of dogs we see today. In different degrees its either bred out or exaggerated. Early puppy drive to fetch and play is what a lot of people carry over into saying prey drive, early in the dogs life it started out as the budding prey drive but switched in a lot of dogs to a toy obsession.

Play or toy drive is really the underdeveloped prey drive but is changed by when people teach and encourage the dog to play. However serious a dog is about a ball it will not look at the ball as true prey, just an object it is seriously obsessed with, or in some cases mildly interested in. When a dog chases a ball the dog is not in the deadly seek and destoy mode. Its in play or "ball" drive. Also called the retrieval drive. Play drive isn't something that comes into wild canine's lives on a regular basis, its basically an exceptionally long-lived puppy behaivor. Domesticated dogs don't normally mature mentally as wild canids do, that is how we get this life long play/ball/retrieval drive behavior.

In REAL prey drive the dog is in essence huting and killing or attempting to do so.

I will agree totally that the LGD that will be left alone to do its job really shouldn't be encouraged in a lot of play drive behaiviors because inevitably the dog, being unsupervised and bored when young, will attempt that play behavior on other animals. Often what starts as innocent puppy like fun turns in to a deadly game. Even when a dog doens't switch into real prey drive often the "living chew toy" will be killed.

 

[thndrdancr]

So one shouldnt "play" with their puppies at all? Not even like tug of war with a known thing that one used consistently, etc? I am just trying to get ideas here.

And introducing the chickens, I can do that right way with close supervision, right for a few minutes a day? I even have house chickens and chickies so its doable.

I KNOW not to let anything unsupervised. They want to play and chew right now, especially on my socks, shoes, etc. I am very confused, reading so many dif opinions.

They are so young to be outside on their own yet, we have SO many coyotes, they could take them out in a heartbeat. So much easier to try to train something as well with it being in the house as well, such as chicken exposure, food stuff... (the lil boy came with a bit of food aggression the first two days and I have been working with him) collar and least training.....

 

[hunterjumper999]

i've been researching and talking to a local breeder about getting a LGD.


the one thing she can not stress enough is that once the puppy is of weaning age it comes home and it goes in with whomever it's supposed to protect.

I think that your first "mistake" ( and i use this lightly) is that the dogs you want to guard your flock are in your house and interacting with you alot.

The things that I have found ( and as i said, im learing so im sure that someone can offer insite or correct any mis information that i have absorbed) to be most common is that you take the LGD right home and introduce it to the animals it will be guarding. The guarding is instinct and you don't really teach it persay and you do teach the dog basic manners when you are entering the area that it is kept ( such as no agression twards you , no chasing ect/.. eta.. also, every lgd i met has sat once you're in its pen and left you alone... they are mostly mellow breeds i think. ) but you don't need a LGD that sits, down stays and retrieves. it just has to protect its flock. in my oppinion a little fear of the large birds right now would be benificial. hes not going to go after something that he's wary of and he will eventually i'd hope get used to them and live in harmony.

LGD's are WORKING dogs. you can make pets of them but they don't always function well as a dual purpose house dog/guardian dog.


I had one that came with my goats( a G.P) and the goats had been in a 100 acre field with a board fence. Nothing got them for a year. Then i purchased them and moved them to my friends 5 acre property. They felt bad for Cheif ( the dog) and took him inside if it was cold over the winter and did not tell me . The goats were killed on their front lawn that spring because cheif was on the porch sleeping. He'd never 'ignored' his charges prior to the introduction to the house.

so call me cruel but when I get another ( if i get another) I will be putting her right in the pen with the chickens from day one.

eta... as far as your thinking they would be taken by coyotes... do you have a secure run? I'd invest in the 200.00 dog kennel then or build one myself . just m oppinon ( and a semi educated one at best)but they will end up confused.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

LGD's are WORKING dogs. you can make pets of them but they don't always function well as a dual purpose house dog/guardian dog.

AMEN!!!!!!!​

 

[cmjust0]

Quote:
While I agree with what you posted, I beg to differ about that statement.
My big ole Lab may be the dumbest dog that I've ever owned, AND also the most "prey/fetch" driven, but he DEFINITELY knows the difference between frizbees and chickens.

Again, I'm not saying you should encourage prey games of fetch with a LGD, no way. I totally agree about not encouraging those things....just sayin if my dumb dog can figure it out, surely your "smart" LGD can

My LGD really didn't have to 'figure it out,' per se.. Prey drive was bred out of him over thousands of years, and what little he may have had was never developed or encouraged when he was little. As such, he has none as an adult.

I'm not saying prey-drive dogs can't learn not to chase prey...What I'm saying is this: Don't train a LGD to chase prey in the first place, and you won't have to "break it" of the habit later.

ETA: Just read Jamie's response. Play drive, prey drive...whatever. End result is the same, and it's dead or injured livestock. I could go on about whether it's play or prey, as I would be interested to hear why BCs and Aussies are considered to need modified prey drive in order to do their jobs, and why it's widely held that the visual acuity that comes with their modified prey drive is what makes them so good at frisbee competitions and whatnot...and why it's not called modified play drive if that's what most domestics have these days...but I won't go there.

See, I've come to a learned behavior myself; one that's totally counter to the behaviors inherent my own breeding and bloodlines.. That is: Don't argue with Jamie.

 

[Barred Rocks forever]

so is there a way you guys play with your LGDs at all ?

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

Quote:
LOL this really made me giggle.

With BC's it is modified prey drive, modified in a way that keeps them short of killing. Intensive breeding/selection allows this behavioral/working intensity without the progression of a bite/shake/kill/eat succession in the drive. Intensity is what gets them to the play drive when its NOT a herd of sheep/birds/what-have-you's.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

so is there a way you guys play with your LGDs at all ?

Define "play"​

 

[Barred Rocks forever]

um throwing a ball wrestleing going on a walk

 

[cmjust0]

Quote:
NEVER.

wrestleing

in moderation

going on a walk

...not really that kind of dog..​