train them to attack (or just make them crazy) and sell them as protection dogs.
What you left out is this. They troll for dogs and get them for free, agitation train them, and then sell them for a very large amount of money, once they are completely dangerous, eratic and unreliable.
In other words, if this is the case, your dog would be kept in a basement with no lights for days at a time, and not fed. When someone came to the dog, they would beat the dog. They would beat the dog until it started to snarl and bark and bite, and then they would give the dog food.
If your dog 'flunks out' of THIS program, she will be insane when you get her back. Your only choice will be to put her to sleep.
These people are not only ignorant, they are thugs. And they are usually wealthy thugs. They get that way by ripping people off.
This is extremely not uncommon. In fact it is FAR MORE common than a K9 policeman trolling for adult dogs that are reactive to strangers, which is completely not common at all, because it is not at all what police look for or how they get dogs, recession or not.
The whole thing shows a basic lack of knowledge of dogs and NOT an interest in police work but something entirely different.
Note that occasionally these thugs ARE cops who are doing this on the side. And the dogs are most definitely NOT going to be part of an official canine unit. Do NOT be fooled by the person's ability to show he is a policeman. A beat cop is NOT a canine unit trainer. They are specially trained.
Please, don't.
My suggestion is this - work in a group class with a professional trainer to make your dog more stable, reliable and obedient. The problem isn't the breed or the 'nature' of the dog at all, but a lack of appropriate training.
There is no one who will be seeking out this dog and give it a 'good home' at this point. Please do stop kidding yourself about that. PLEASE.
Some dogs are harder to train than others and you haven't had one of this sort of dog before. It appears you made some mistakes in raising this dog. So? Everyone makes mistakes. Assume responsibility for how this dog has evolved and don't rehome it.
Get help, find a good trainer who is familiar with this type of problem and comes highly recommended. Do NOT 'send the dog away to be trained'. Because it is more the OWNER that needs to be trained in how to train this particular dog. Even months of training will evaporate in a few minutes if the owner does not know how to reinforce and maintain it.
Work hard, work the dog daily, listen to and follow the trainer's instructions, straighten the dog out, recognize that it may always have some limitations due to the late start of training, and handle and house the dog accordingly.
And if the trainer says the dog will never be safe or reliable around strangers and recommends euthenasia, put the dog to sleep.
I'm more concerned about the dog being reactive to strangers than livestock. When you have a dog that attacks livestock, you keep the dog away from the livestock. The goats can be in a pen when the dog is out, and the dog can be in a kennel or crate when the stock is out.
A dog does not NEED to be loose all the time. It can be in a kennel when you cannot have it on a leash and supervise it. It can be on an overhead lead as well. The lead is fastened to a choke collar so the dog can not slip the collar off. The lead runs on an overhead cable and that gives the dog a lot of room to play and exercise but keeps it away from the stock.
I would not START by believing the dog can not be trained to leave livestock alone. Usually, if you are willing to be firm enough, it can be done. You might need a shock collar, especially once the dog has a habit and has killed some animals. You might need to toughen yourself up and harden yourself to the kind of correction this particular dog needs.
Most dog trainers, if you say, 'My dog has a strong prey drive, so I can't train him to not attack my goats', would laugh in your face and say, 'I don't care if he has a 'strong prey drive', he's not allowed to attack goats'.
Granted, getting the point across at this time, might not be terribly pretty. A herding trainer told me he had a dog that attacked stock and killed several sheep, and that he beat the dog like a rug before it stopped. I was shocked but he said, 'I'll be **** *** ****** if I let a dog with that little problem go to anyone else, it stops here or he gets put down here'. He said he bawled for an hour after he did it. You don't approve? If it was a matter of life and death, and I don't mean just the stock's life, but the dog's life too, I'd do it.
One has to be reasonable. There are a lot of things I wouldn't expect of the BEST dog. My friend had her GSD loose in her yard for hours at a time unsupervised, no fences, no pens, and was upset when it killed her chicken. I have to say, I think that is expecting too much. She wanted the dog to get exercised, but didn't want to work him or be out there supervising him (From what I could tell, it was TV that was the stronger draw), and she wanted the chickens out 'free ranging'. Would not put up a tractor for the chickens, a kennel for the dog, would not stick to a plan to schedule her own time, and expected them all to coexist for hours with no supervision. Come on. Very few dogs can do that. Not saying you are unreasonable in that way, but that very often, scheduling, planning and effort can manage such a problem.
Generally what is first needed is better obedience training. The dog should always respond immediately to one command, not repeated commands, regardless of distraction. Many distractions can be provided in a training class, and while prey animals are a special distraction, training with other distractions in class does help and makes the training to leave alone the livestock, easier.
