Raising up Pyrenees pups. UPDATE P7

[r4eboxer]

Glad you found the site! Thanks for the post, it's always good to hear from Pyr owners who have BTDT.

I am a member of the GreatPyr.com site and have been since before I got my pups. I have had some great discussions on that site about many topics. Lots of great owners with a lot of wisdom.

I will be posting an update soon but wanted to say hello and thanks.

 

[r4eboxer]

It's been a long time since I have logged on to BYC. I've been busy with all the poultry, the garden, canning and raising up my LGD's. I have to say the girls are AMAZING!!!! I spent months training them to the property, teaching them commands and telling them over and over again to "LEAVE IT". Well it has paid off. I don't even shut the door to my coop anymore. I have chickens that roost on the wood pile, though most do roost in the coop I've got a few who are still to scared to go back into the coop. Early spring I had a possum that got quite a few of my birds. During this time I was still penning up my LGD's at night and the possum was having quite a feast for a few weeks. Finally I got tired of it and let my girls loose.
I was happy to find that the girls knew their boundaries and did not wander from the areas I was walking and training them to all those months.




That first night the girls got the possum. I have let the girls roam the acreage ever since, every now and then I can hear them in the pasture. The other night I heard one of the girls in the pasture where the geese, ducks and goats are and the other one was on the side of the property where the houses are guarding that area. I wonder how they work that out? They have some sort of system.

Here is Sequoia keeping watch over her flock, Genevieve is just out of the shot enjoying a tasty bacon treat.



I do have an addition to tell you about. We rescued a 13 month old Pyr from the kill shelter. He was scheduled to be put down that evening and my sister called me about him. His name is Ben and he is a GEM!! He is so funny, he thinks he is a lap dog for some reason and every morning tries to climb into my lap. We have to keep him inside right now at night because I need to do some work with him on boundaries. The first day he came to us he was wild to get at the chickens. Now I can leave him outside and he doesn't even give them a second thought. I think the girls set him straight on the birds Now on the subject of Ben, there is a pic of him with a nasty wound on his head, this is from a dog that has wondered our neighborhood for the past year. It is from a Husky that killed 3 of my chickens last Thanksgiving. Ben is not fond of strange dogs coming onto his grounds so he gave the husky a talking to.... the husky has not been back since....

I took this picture because if the dog comes back again I'm going to sue the owners for my vet bills. He hasn't been back, but this dog attacked Ben while he was tied up.

Here is Ben getting lovin'



Ben on the second day we had him.


The girls like to lay on the hill an look over the property. I think it makes them feel big.

 

[zazouse]

good dogs, why is one of them on a chain

 

[r4eboxer]

. Ben is a rescue, we have not had him a full month yet. The photo you see of him on the chain is the second day we had him. Ben went after my chickens when he first got here. I kept him on the chain for a week ( with twice a day walks) and the poultry milled around him. After the first few days he stopped trying to catch one, after a week of the walking and teaching the command "leave it" Ben was no longer a threat to my birds. Ben is the same dog in the photos with my son in the family room.

I trained my girls by allowing my flock to roam around them while they were tied up for a while too. If the girls would chase the birds while free ranging I would put them in "time out" by tying them up for a few hours during the day. I would recommend this training tool to anyone wanting to poultry safe their LGD. It worked famously on three dogs and my girls are not even a year old yet and do not chase the birds anymore. Ben is just 13 months and I trained him in less than a month, though having the girls already trained helped.

One funny thing about Ben, he is a threat but only to my egg harvest, Ben goes with me to collect eggs, as do the girls. When he figured out there were eggs in the nest boxes he started helping himself. He sticks his head in the nest box and gets an egg every day and eats it shell and all. the girls each get one a day too. I just stick an egg in each of the girls mouth and they trod off to enjoy their treat. I hope it helps to keep their coat shiny.

 

[snowflake]

. Ben is a rescue, we have not had him a full month yet. The photo you see of him on the chain is the second day we had him. Ben went after my chickens when he first got here. I kept him on the chain for a week ( with twice a day walks) and the poultry milled around him. After the first few days he stopped trying to catch one, after a week of the walking and teaching the command "leave it" Ben was no longer a threat to my birds. Ben is the same dog in the photos with my son in the family room.
I trained my girls by allowing my flock to roam around them while they were tied up for a while too. If the girls would chase the birds while free ranging I would put them in "time out" by tying them up for a few hours during the day. I would recommend this training tool to anyone wanting to poultry safe their LGD. It worked famously on three dogs and my girls are not even a year old yet and do not chase the birds anymore. Ben is just 13 months and I trained him in less than a month, though having the girls already trained helped.
One funny thing about Ben, he is a threat but only to my egg harvest, Ben goes with me to collect eggs, as do the girls. When he figured out there were eggs in the nest boxes he started helping himself. He sticks his head in the nest box and gets an egg every day and eats it shell and all. the girls each get one a day too. I just stick an egg in each of the girls mouth and they trod off to enjoy their treat. I hope it helps to keep their coat shiny.

I am interested in the GP's but I had read they don't come when called, sounds like you have trained yours very well,,,,,, have to go feed the chickens now but hope to get back to this thread

 

[r4eboxer]

I am interested in the GP's but I had read they don't come when called, sounds like you have trained yours very well,,,,,, have to go feed the chickens now but hope to get back to this thread

I read that too before I got my Pyr's, I figured if GP's can be trained to perform in the show ring then I could train them to do what I wanted them to do. All three of mine come when called. When I first got Ben he did not listen AT ALL, Pyrs are very smart and it did not take him long to learn. I was worried the first few days because Ben is so big I could not handle him on a leash when we would walk the property. I got my girls as pups and had them trained by the time they were too big for me to handle on a leash. Treats do an amazing job of helping the training process. I used treats and positive reinforcement, no shock collars, or hitting. I did do 'time outs' and they learned if they didn't want to be 'grounded' they would not chase the birds. It took a few times but they got the picture.

 

[Mountain Man Jim]

I was catching up on the thread .... it sounds like you have done a great job training the pups!!

Congrats,

Jim

 

[r4eboxer]

I was catching up on the thread .... it sounds like you have done a great job training the pups!!

Congrats,

Jim

I owe a lot of thanks to you, I am still having trouble with Genevieve jumping on us though. Sequoia is the better behaved in that area for sure. I'm still working on it though. Thanks for all your help with my girls.

 

[Mountain Man Jim]

I think like everyone here, I’m excited (dare say giddy) to see you go from having cute puppies to CGDs and in such a short time. Thanks to your hard and consistent work your homestead seems to be a real success story.

In regards to the jumping up, the dog jumping up on you can be interrupted as a dominance display and I’m sure it often is but, it can also be part of play or a ploy for attention. You would know best your dog as to what the jumping up means. Either way, it’s probably a behavior that would be good to curb. I get to deal with a fair amount of dogs jumping up on me when I volunteer at an animal shelter once a week. It seems that the first thing many dogs need to do is jump up on me to assert/determine dominance. My immediate and consistent reaction establishes the balance of power. The adult dogs usually test me a few times. If I’m consistent with corrections, they settle down and respect me. The puppies are puppies and jump up mostly in play but also to see if they’re on top yet (puppies are dorks if you ask me). I use a few techniques depending on the situation as corrections.

The first technique is what seems to be universally taught as the right response. Basically you deny the dog the satisfaction of the jumping up by turning to the side (90 degrees) as the dog jumps up and ignore them. It might sound odd but, if works. The dog really wants to be in front of you when they jump up and they want your attention.

The second technique I use happens because I wasn’t paying attention and the dog ends up on me. In that situation I knee the dog in the chest with a quick, startling move. I equate the move to the action of a more dominant dog reprimanding a lower ranked dog; just a quick, sharp snap. This almost always gets the dog off of you.

The third technique I use I can’t not actually recommend. Basically, I use a little martial arts on the dog. Sometimes this turns into play which is ok if dog is well behaved. Sometimes the dog learns that after a few years of Aikido, I’m better than him at this and decides that jumping up is not a good idea. Either way, I win.

Typically, I end up using a combination these techniques during the initial encounter with the new dog; one of them is bound to work. After as few attempts at jumping up, most of the dogs stop. I doubt if they are cured of jumping up on people but, for the next 10 minutes, they stop the behavior with me.

The last technique is one we use at home. We’ve actually taught our alpha male to jumping up on command. He always liked to jump up and to do the Aikido move with me in play. But, you really don’t want a dog to be constantly jump up on you. It turns out that a good way to teach when and where we can jump up is to teach the action as a command and make it a game. This way when he wants to jump up (outside of play time) he knows that the command wasn’t given and it’s not play time. He still does a little half jump and play bark to see if we will play with him when he’s excited but, a sharp NO tells him that now is not the time.

I realize that one of your major concerns is a large Pyr jumping up on kids and grandparents and strangers. I believe that dogs learn situations more then they learn rules. So, you may need to enlist friends that don’t visit very often into the training. The humans involved need to understand what they’re response needs to be and the dogs needs will need to be training every so often (like every time someone new comes to the farm) to learn that when people come over we don’t jump up.

So, what’s the martial arts move I use? It’s simple, as they rear up, my hand comes from outside to the back side of their head and I kind of swat them down and off to my other side (across your body). For what every reason, they’re surprised by this every time. There are some other more involved moves but, I’ll save those for my upcoming book, “Dog Aikido”.

Jim