However, I could not touch them in the open field and I could not walk them on leash. I could entice them with food to jump into my truck or a trailer that I converted into a doghouse. My first two guard dogs, Gertrude and Berthold, indeed lacked that human interaction. The reason for it is that the dogs would leave the flock to interact with humans when they have too much contact with them. Green, it clearly stated that human interaction must be reduced to a minimum. In the original literature I received from Dr. The most notable change of them is the leash training. Applying my newfound knowledge, I made changes over the years. I had to learn as I went along and with it came many mistakes and misconceptions. Even though I had trained and used herding dogs for more than a decade, raising a guard dog was completely different. When I started using a guard dog, I had no knowledge whatsoever. I highly recommend reading this book if you attempt raising and using a guard dog. So, here is an actual book I own: “Livestock Protection Dogs: Selection, Care, and Training” by David E. In this article I cannot address all you need to know about how to raise the pup, how to correct undesired behavior, how to interpret certain behaviors and so on. Simon has outgrown his puppy-like behavior and can now be trusted full time with the small lambs. Guarding, on the other hand, means that the dog views the livestock as members of its own pack (hence the need to raise the dog with the livestock) just like a pet dog views a human a member of its pack. A herding dog sees the livestock as prey. Herding and guarding are mutually exclusive. Likewise, another misconception is that a guard dog will herd the sheep. A pen with a group of older sheep that are calm, or the lambing barn, are good places to start a pup at an age of about eight weeks.Ī common misunderstanding is that a herding dog could also guard. For a guardian dog to work successfully, it must be reared with the flock as opposed to growing up amongst humans. Good behavior, liker alert barking, can be encouraged, and bad behavior, like chewing on or chasing livestock, must be disciplined. It is not that you let a guard dog loose with the flock and that’s that. The fact that the guardian behavior is instinctive does not mean the farmer has no role to play. ![]() The dog either has it or it doesn’t have it, in which case it will fail. It is not taught, and it cannot be taught. They feel obligated to protect and defend the livestock with which they grew up. That keeps a guardian dog from chasing the animals it is supposed to protect, or at the very least reduces the amount greatly. Furthermore, guardian dog breeds lack prey drive, which makes them less likely to chase and hunt animals. That means white dogs are more acceptable to a group of sheep to live amongst them. Livestock, with its innate fear of the wolf, feel less threatened by a lighter colored dog versus a dark or black dog. There are many old-world guardian dog breeds like Great Pyrenees from France, Maremmas from Italy, and Akbash and Anatolian Shepherds from Turkey, to name a few. Simultaneously, I contacted a breeder in Tennessee and purchased a 13-month-old female, who had been started on goats. ![]() I received literature about raising, training, and understanding livestock guardian dogs. I needed a dog that was safe around people. ![]() I was living at that time in populated New Jersey and had rented public land to graze my sheep. That was the breed that had not bitten any human during these tests of about 300 dogs of various breeds. He was kind enough to take my call and after a lengthy conversation, I was set on getting a Great Pyrenees. Jeffrey Green at the Sheep Experiment Station in Dubois, Idaho. A lead person for these field trials was Dr. The US government was testing several breeds of guardian dogs at that time. After weighing options like a lama or a donkey, I decided to go with a dog. In 2011, I wrote an article for the Small Farms Quarterly about “ Livestock Guardian Dogs.” In the past nine years I gained many additional insights and had new experiences, which I want to share in this new article.Ī heavy loss of lambs, caused by a desperate and mangy coyote, made me consider using a livestock guardian dog. This is my current guard dog, two-year old Great Pyrenees named Simon.Ĭourtesy of Ulf Kintzel / White Clover Sheep Farm
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