LGD’s
Our Livestock Guardian Dogs (LGD’s) are growing so fast, and recently they have been put on pasture with their first group of sheep to begin guarding. We didn’t expect to be able to send them out this early, and we have been really impressed with how well they are doing. There are a lot of opinions out there on how to raise and train LGD’s, but since the method we have been using is working so well, I thought it might be helpful if I document what we tried and what worked. We have a lot of animals, and we spend a lot of time around animals watching their behaviors, their mannerisms, how they interact with each other, how they interact with their environment, and how they interact with us. While all animals are different, they are alike in a lot of ways too. Knowing that, we knew that a lot of the “experts” on LGDs weren’t thinking about training the dogs from the dogs’ perspectives. Greg Judy, a rancher in Missouri is different though….he understands the different Livestock Guardian Breeds and the need to work with their natural instincts and abilities. He is well known for having raised hundreds of successful LGDs. We followed his recommendations pretty closely, and the following are details on how we did it.
Buy good breeding stock
I think this goes without saying for most livestock and breeding animals, but buying good, well-bred Livestock Guardian Dogs is so important. It is important that the parents are LGD’s, and it is important that the puppies have been raised only in the barn around livestock. It is also important that only Livestock Guardian Dog breeds are used for guarding livestock. This sounds so obvious, but I have seen so many people asking why their German shepherd (a working/herding breed) or their Labrador Retriever (a hunting breed) couldn’t make a good livestock guardian when they sound so ferocious around strangers at their door. Trying to change a breed’s instincts and drive will not work. And a “mean/ferocious/house-guarding” dog is not a livestock guardian. The opposite probably. A Great Pyrenees bonds to sheep with no real training the way a terrier chases rodents. If you go against nature and try to get your German shepherd to guard your sheep, you are likely going to end up with a lot of dead sheep and a very full German shepherd 🤦🏼♀️ The same goes for people who try to herd their sheep or cattle with a Great Pyrenees…save that for the Border Collies or other herding breeds. Always buy good stock if you want a good experience.
The Great Pyrenees breed - All breeds have their quirks, but Great Pyrenees are different. From just a few weeks old, these quiet, calm, majestic dogs seem almost mature. It’s as if they know early on they have an important job to do. They typically will not attack, and they rarely want to fight. But, if forced to fight, they will almost always fight to the death to defend their sheep, family, or other livestock that they are bonded to. In the west, Great Pyrenees wear large spike collars to keep their throats from being bitten by cats and bears because they will not back down from a fight. Thankfully in our area, they mainly need to protect our sheep from coyotes and other dogs, and their large size and awful bark will often drive both away without a fight.
Introduce young puppies to mature, confident ewes
We initially put our puppies in a pen with 5 mature ewes who were getting ready to have lambs. The puppies had a chance to get to know the ewes for about 2 weeks before the lambs came which ended up being perfect. Before the lambs came, the ewes and puppies got along great, so the puppies had a really good chance to bond with them, cuddle with them during the cold nights, and get to know the sheep. Then, when lambing started, the puppies also had a chance to bond to the lambs. We did find that during the actual birthing process, the ewes didn’t want the puppies around the new lambs. Great Pyrenees, like all dogs, have natural instincts to investigate everything new in their area. And when they smelled the after-birth and the new, wet lambs, they definitely wanted to investigate, smell, and taste everything. The ewes are great protectors of their baby lambs though and wouldn’t let the puppies near their new lambs, so the puppies learned from a really young age to stay back while they were lambing. During this time when the ewes were lambing it was really important that our puppies had an area with their food, water and toys that they could get to and our ewes could not. And while only they could get in there, they usually chose to spend their time out with the ewes. But as soon as they got too close to a new lamb, they always hightailed it back to safety before the ewe could run them off. When our LGDs are guarding the sheep, we don’t want them hanging around and “helping” during lambing. Instead we want them patrolling the pastures and keeping other animals from coming into our pastures during lambing time. So this situation worked out really well for teaching the dogs how to act and respect the ewes during lambing,
Hot wire, and electronet
When the puppies were 4 months old we moved them, the 5 mature ewes, and their lambs to an area of the barn where they could all get to an outside paddock as well as an indoor area. It was a larger area so the puppies could run and play and get used to wide open spaces without chasing the sheep. At this point, the ewes weren’t as protective of their lambs, so the lambs and puppies formed some real bonds. The outdoor part of this area was fenced off with hot electric fencing, and the puppies learned within about 5 minutes not to touch it. Some livestock can be harder to train to electric fence, but the puppies learned right away. Getting the puppies used to it in a small contained area first is crucial. You don’t want to turn them out onto a 20 acre pasture and just hope for the best - you have to know that they will respect fences and not get out. Every year so many LGDs are lost when they leave the farm and get hit by a car.
Petting vs. Ignoring -
This is a really hot-button topic in the world of LGD’s, and everyone has a different opinion about how it should be handled. While we don’t have enough experience for me to give real advice on this topic in either direction, I can tell you what worked for us and what we will do with our next group of puppies. I do know that after months of observing our dogs, I feel confident that we are on the right track, and I hope to update this in the future with advice on exactly how much socialization and human interaction our dogs should receive.
We started by socializing the puppies heavily. When we first got them, I was mostly worried about having guardian dogs on our farm with kids and lots of visitors. I was afraid they wouldn’t be socialized enough and could hurt a person. So we played with them constantly from 8-16 weeks old. We brought them into our home, we asked everyone we knew to stop in and play with them, we taught them to walk on a leash, we fed them treats, and we petted, cuddled, and loved on them. They lived with a sheep flock, but they interacted with humans daily. We taught them to sit, to stay down and not jump, and to not rush gates. Then, after watching more Greg Judy videos we sort of panicked and thought maybe we had really screwed up. He and so many others advise against treating LGDs this way (and they may be right). We stopped the playtime, and we reduced our interactions by a lot. They still loved to see us though, so we were really worried that they had been “ruined” as guardians. I lost a lot of sleep worrying about this- worrying that the dogs were too bonded to humans at this point and wouldn’t be able to bond to their sheep instead (I woke Brandon up one night and told him that we might as well just bring the puppies home and make them house dogs, because I didn’t see it working out. He turned the color of our white sheets, said “5 giant dogs in our house??” And then I think he stopped sleeping that month too, ha!). But, I am happy to report that they bonded very well to their sheep even after having spent so much time with us. They will come to us in the pasture to have their heads petted, but they always run back to check on their sheep right away. We can call them over to us at any time which I like - they are still very friendly and easy to handle. But they do prefer to be with their sheep over us. So I have to say that I think it worked out really well…they are safer around people since they were socialized, and they have some basic manners which will make it a lot easier if they ever need to go to the vet or take a ride in the truck. But they are definitely more bonded to the sheep than to us. This week one of our farm hands brought her brother along to move our sheep flock, and one of the dogs stayed with the sheep and would not approach him. I personally don’t think with all of the people, visitors, and kids around our farm that I would want to raise LGD’s that have had no socialization even though that is often recommended. So to recap, when we raise our next group of puppies, we will start by socializing them heavily to many people. We will then stop completely at about 16 weeks. At that point there will be very little human interaction with the puppies until they are well bonded to their sheep. After that we will go back to a normal amount of interaction.
Feeding the Dogs
A hungry Pyrenees will roam, he won’t do his job, and he will generally be a pain to deal with. We make sure our dogs always have food, and they get to self regulate how much they eat. We do not hand feed them or determine how much food they need. It is also important that the dogs can eat alone without any other animals getting to their food. The plan we followed to hold their dog feeder came from Greg Judy, and it works really well. It holds a 50# dog feeder with a magnetic swinging door. The dogs can push the door open to get to their food, and then it closes to keep their food dry. Only the dogs can get into their food, so they always have a place to go to be alone and eat in peace. We move the entire feeder with our side-by-side or 4-wheeler every time the livestock move to a new paddock (every 36-48 hrs).
There are so many different ways to raise Livestock Guardian Dogs, and while the needs of the farmer and the dog need to be taken into account, I do think that checking out Greg Judy as a first step would be a worthwhile one. His theories make sense from the perspective of the LGD’s, and they make life easier for the farmer. As we learn more, I plan to update this with what we learn, what works, and what doesn’t.
