I have an indoor/outdoor pyr. When we got her she had parvo and there was no choice but she be house-trained and cared for.
However, she is good with the chickens and goats - occassionally wanting to play too hard when young - that's reallllllly common in LGDs. It passes with supervision and training. When we leave the house she watches the house/yard/goats and poultry. She sleeps indoors now ( loves her couch) but goes out routinely at night to survey things if she thinks there's something up.
We're adding a dog door for her at night soon.
She was NOT initially at all comfortable indoors - no.
It took quite a bit of work - since she was born and initially raised outdoors to 12 weeks - that's really common.
I can certainly see some individuals reared outdoors never acclimating to inside without serious training/necessity.
I like having her comfortable everywhere on the place from the hen house to the home. She just rocks. I'll never not have a pyr again. They're super intelligent and terrific guardians.
I'm considering another eventually to live full time with the goats - if I can find one that needs rescuing again.
Neat, neat breed. But um yeah - they really appear to LOVE to tear stuff up when not on duty. We keep her well supplied with destroyables. Popular and cheap are old basketballs, old footballs (leather ones), Tirebiters (a brand of chewy made from cleaned treated and recycled tires - nice and tough). Nylabones and kongs are utterly destroyed fairly quickly. Jollyballs toast. Everlasting treatballs are very useful. But don't last forever - lol. The biggest has survived all the smaller ones from her puppyhood destroyed. She likes soccer with balls til she kills them.
All in all just a super breed if you have time, room and something for them to do. I know many successful pet Pyrs who are indeed happy with their lot. Walked, social, comfortable in the home.
A commited owner can make that work. Seen it too often for it not to be true.
An uncommited uncaring owner - whether a working dog or a pet dog makes for a miserable animal period.
I've known a few pyrs who wanted NOTHING to do with outside.
I've known Pyrs purchased for pets who wanted nothing to do with pet status who were farm placed for their own good.
I commend both sets of owners when they care enough to SEE whether the dog is doing well in the environment they are offering.
Dogs are individuals, homes are individual. And something like guardianship tendency will not crop up in all members of a breed. Some people can rear and keep some pyrs as pets. Some as Ranch dogs - like mine - comfortable indoors and out, with the family pack of dogs and with the goats/poultry. Some absolutely prefer to be out there with the livestock, especially when reared that way from birth to when they are purchased/rescued.
Breed only indicates tendency and potential, you as a trainer and owner, train toward what you want but hopefully SEE what the dog - once TRAINED and ACCLIMATIZED - prefers.
If I took a year old goat reared LGD in and tried to bring it into the sounds/smells/confines of the human home - I'd expect six months to be required to judge whether the animal could become comfortable or not. Yep, six months of training and work.
Pyrs are good guards because they SENSE and FEEL and REACT to ALL changes in the environment. New sounds, shapes, colors, movement, scents ALL show up a HUGE changes on a Pyrs radar. And those things SET OFF the dog's instincts.
How offensive then is the first introduction to a human home??? To leash and tv, dishwasher, cleaning agents, carpet (to a dog it stinks synthetics), AC and heating sounds/static, any scented candles add more ugh. Add the CONFINES of the human home and the very close proximity of PEOPLE new to the dog, and RULES the dog does not know and of course the POOR thing wants back outside to what it knows.
There are a hundred things in the human home guaranteed to set off a newly introduced LGD. Retraining into a home is not a simple thing of "beneficial intent". You know you mean well. You know it's safe. The dog does NOT. Cannot know that. Dogs do not infer intent.
Only time and training retrains an animal used to one extreme or the other.
So sure, a field pyr introduced to indoors is running for the door. All it's alarms are screaming at it.
Could that dog learn and be trained to enjoy it eventually? Some yes, some no. But it would take months of acclimatization. A thing few owners tend to want to work with.
Most just decide the dog wants to be outside.
I rehabilitate feral, semi-feral, and "farm" or tied out and puppymill dogs routinely. It does NOT occur to them to want to be in the human home. It does not feel safe.
In time most learn to enjoy it. But it's not this over night thing in even normally very domestic pet breeds.
Add the whole LGD - very enviromentally sensitive - uber intelligent and you add a whole layer of more dog to train.
They make good seizure indicator dogs for a reason. They can be that tuned in to people and things.
Retraining a dog like that takes even more work.
And it's why I love them.
