LGD? Help explain please

[Love my Critters!]

I see a lot of post with Great Pyranise (Sp) acting as guard dogs. Are they actually bred to protect livestock? I saw the post where the dogs went after a hawk. I was truly impressed. Do they have to go thru a lot of special training for this or is it in their "blood". Just curious. I have a boston terrior and she is all of 10 pounds. No help when it comes to "fighting" off anything.

 

[RoyalHillsLLC]

yes. It is in their genes to protect the animals they are bonded too. It is all in the training to make sure they bond to your animals. I was losing several birds a week until I got mine. Since October, no losses and mine is only 10 months old, which really is too young to be on the job. I just didn't have a choice, as a trained mature dog is so expensive and I was losing birds so often.
keep in mind puppy training is just like other breeds, very difficult as they will be playful. i love my GP though. can't freerange without her.
To answer your question about training, you don't train them to guard. A good working dog (as opposed to show bred) it will be in their blood. You just have to properly introduce them to the stock they need to guard, whether it be poultry, sheep, goats, cattle, or whatever.

 

[Run-A-Muck Ranch]

We have Great Pyr.s. I wouldnt' trade them for the world...I am sure others like other breeds, but this is my breed of choice...We have horses, llamas, goats, sheeps, rabbits, ducks, geese, turkeys, guineas, chickens, feeder pigs, and pot belly pigs....( I think I got all the critters)...
Anyway our female had a litter of puppys in Dec. They are the cutest little fluff balls (kinda remind of what a cotton ball factory would look like if it exploded...) anyway, they were in the house when first born, now have been out in the barn for a while...They are wonderful with all the animals. They have interaction time with them all, but then they are in the milk house at night...
We don't 'train' per-say our dogs to guard, they just do....
Even our dog Jackyl...HE's a purebreed GP also, we got him at 10 weeks and when turned out with the animals he did a wonderful job. He was actually herding up/rounding up our turkeys at one time and then walking them back closer to the house area...He had no training for that, he just did it....

You would love a GP....I dont' even wanna imagine our farm without them, now that we have them...

 

[Fredster]

Yep, pretty much what RoyalHills said. They just know.

But, one thing you do need to know is that Great Pyrs will occasionally accidentally kill a chicken when they're puppies, because they're trying to play with it. Ours haven't, because the few times I've seen them try to play with the chickens I make the correction immediately, and they pretty much ignore them now unless there's a threat.

What it looks like to me --- and I'm not anything even close to a dog expert --- is that they learn who belongs in the chicken yard, and they run off anything that doesn't belong. They even keep the birds out.

 

[Love my Critters!]

I think that is so neat. I had neighbors growing up, that had border collies and heelers, but they would come kill our livestock and chickens. What other breeds are for protecting livestock? I think the GP's are beautiful but I live in the desert where the summers are 115+ degrees.

 

[horsejody]

The training is important. One of my neighbors had one a few years ago. They never trained it, and it would always roam on my property and harrass my horses. It was a major pain in the butt. However, a well trained one confined on its owner's property can be great.

 

[RoyalHillsLLC]

Common breeds include Anatolian shepherds, Maremmas, GP's, Asian Shepherd Dogs, and then a bunch of lesser known ones.
keep in mind some will kill other dogs if they get after your birds, not just chase them. they will fight to the death to protect their stock. They were bred to fight wolves and bears in Central asia.

 

[Run-A-Muck Ranch]

When we got Jackyl at 10 weeks, the lady I got him from said that while Jackyl's mom was pregnant with the litter of puppies she took on 6 coyotes that had come into the sheep pasture. She had killed 4 of the coyotes, not sure about the other 2, but 4 of the 6 were dead...Again that was while she was pregnant with the litter too...Very protective of the animals they are guarding...
We have never had a problem with our dogs going after the birds...I have seen the slowly run/jump towards our birds, but never go after...Like I said he was hearding the turkeys when just over 10 weeks....

 

[AHappychick]

I have been wondering this myself. How many of these dogs actually live outside In shlter of course) as upposed to the house? My dad said I should get one but I laughed him off after seeing how big they were and thought a laberdoodle would be better, now I am thinking....

 

[Fredster]

Quote:
Mine live outside. I consider them workers with a job to do, and so they stay with their flock all the time. While they have a dog house, they don't sleep in it at all. They sleep --- and I kid you not --- one in front of each door to the chicken coop. When it rains all night, they'll occasionally go into their house but more often they wriggle under the coop and sleep near the doors.

I'm really starting to wonder if they don't go into the house because it's on the back side of the coop (and not movable either, because it's attached to the coop and uses the coop as one of its walls). I've considered making a doorway between the dog house and the coop, just to see if they'd sleep in the house then, but they seem perfectly happy where they are.