The Castle Rock MARE-TERNITY WARD

Message Boards => General Discussion => Topic started by: Holly on October 05, 2016, 01:15:35 PM

Title: LGD
Post by: Holly on October 05, 2016, 01:15:35 PM

I was wondering if anyone  has livestock guardian dogs. If so what kind.

I have one LGD, a Great Pyrenees 10 months old.  He weighs about 100 lbs, and his name is Bear. He is as big as my minis and when standing out with the herd you cant tell if he is a dog or a miniature ( with a lot of hair!)

He takes his job as guardian seriously, but is also a big Love. He adores all his critters, and people. 

He stays with our minis when they are out in the pasture at night, and patrols the yard.  He also takes care of our old german Shepherd dog and our mini dachshund.
 

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Chanda on October 05, 2016, 01:49:16 PM

We don't, but a neighbor has an Akbash cross to watch their sheep (and the neighbor's property as well, since they tend to wander large areas during their patrols).

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Holly on October 05, 2016, 02:24:48 PM

Yes Bear likes to wander too, we are installing an invisible fence to keep him home. There are people on our street that like to go very fast, dont want him getting hit :)

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Ryan on October 05, 2016, 07:05:17 PM

I have a boxer, wouldnt say she is a guardian for the horses but certainly for our property.

She has the scariest bark but as soon as she starts wagging her tail , you know she is "all talk"

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: dcwolcott on October 06, 2016, 12:06:24 AM

What a handsome boy!!!

Yes, Ryan, that tail is certainly a "give away!"

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Holly on October 06, 2016, 10:14:13 AM

Ryan, my son rescued a Boxer, named him BUZZARD, lol, he is amazing and so sweet!

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Ryan on October 06, 2016, 05:32:52 PM

They are wonderful dogs, such cheeky personalities :)

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Rocklone on October 10, 2016, 04:41:57 AM

Nope I've got a lab/lurcher and a staffordshire bull terrier haha both love the minis tho

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Lnight89 on October 10, 2016, 04:30:57 PM

We have 3 saint Bernard mixes.  They are really good at keeping the coyotes away and look scary for keeping human bad people away but are actually huge sucks! Someone I know with goat herds has 3 great pyrenees and they are awesome!

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Holly on October 11, 2016, 09:26:21 AM

I have an Older German shepherd, who is 15 almost 16. He grew up protecting my childern, he has always protected home & critters too.I cant bear the thought of being without a guardian , so after much debate we found Bear. He is such a good match. The hardest part has been teaching him to stay on our property, but he is doing excellent now. We just love him so much!

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Holly on October 28, 2016, 09:09:38 AM

Bear getting some pets from his favorite sweetheart😃

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: dcwolcott on October 29, 2016, 12:10:46 PM

Awwwwwwhhhhh!!

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Silver City Heritage Farm on October 30, 2016, 12:24:44 PM

Rocklone, could you share pictures (if the OP doesn't mind pics of everybody's dogs would be fun.)  I'm particularly interested in the Lurcher cross. I read about them in James Harriet's "All Creatures Great and Small" series of vet books. I've always been curious as to what they look like, as we don't have an equivalent here in the States.

Even though I have 3 dogs here, I have no reliable livestock dogs.

Lucky is a Jack Russell Terrier. Everything that isn't equine, feline or canine is for killing. I don't even spank her anymore if she kills a chicken--hunting is too much in her nature and it just makes both of us feel terrible. I've tried all the training techniques with her that I can. She can't overcome genetics, so I have to take on the responsibility of keeping her closely supervised when I let her off leash. I keep her obedience skills sharpened and am hoping to get an obstacle course built this winter. Hopefully, being worked will help alleviate some of her desire to hunt barnyard stock.

Penny is a Dutch Shepherd mix. She has a very soft temperament and mouth. However, soft temperament leads to underestimation of just how SHARP she is mentally. Of my three she is the most aware, intuitive and just plain SCARY SMART. One example:  I need to tie her to a tree with her leash while I did whatever it was. Imagine my amazement when I turned around and caught her untying the knot with her teeth!! She had reared up onto her hind legs, had her front paws on the tree and her lips pulled back with that knot ever so gently between her incisors, and just worrying it back and forth. It took her less than two minutes to get it loose. Seeing this was just another proof of how she figures things out. I'd learned about tying someone too close to her previously, when she let someone else loose. I'd thought neighbors must be turning my dogs loose, since I'd tied her and Guacho (pronounced WAH-choh) close enough together to play without getting tangled up. I found Guacho running loose about 20 minutes later. I THOUGHT one of the neighbors must have unclipped him, since he had his collar on and his lead was just there in the dust. This happened a couple of times before I caught Penny in the act of unclipping him. I don't know how she can hold the bolt clip between her teeth and operate the snap but she does. She is very soft mouthed, always taking things from the hand very delicately. The birds kind of wander in and out of her territory at will. The worst she does to them is ninja kick them. (She's very handy with both front and hind feet...hence the "Ninja Dog" nickname.) They even lay eggs in her dog house!

Guacho is.....well.....Guacho. He's a muscular mixed breed of either Rottweiler or Pit Bull ancestry. He was dropped off at our old place the week before we moved, and came along here. He's pretty sweet tempered, the youngest of my bunch by about 9 months or so. He's just at a year old, and I'm very behind on getting him neutered. Every time I think I have the money saved to get him done, we need it for something more pressing. As he's just getting to be about a year old, I'm concerned about the puberty fairy leading him off into misadventures. My girls are spayed so that's a help. At any rate, he is aware of the poultry and will run after them if they wander into his space, but he's not adamant about killing them like Lucky is. If he did knosh on one, I think he'd just smoosh it by playing. He's the least complicated of my three. Pretty simple, fairly eager to please and surprisingly light on the lead. He reminds me of a joke my brother told me when he was in Marines Basic Training:

The military had recently implemented group punishment. (If one guy messes up, he isn't reprimanded alone because that would be too harsh. So everybody had to run or do push-ups or whatever.) Anyway, there was a big Mid-Western recruit, built like an ox who enjoyed lifting his buddies to show off his muscles. But he couldn't seem to master the most basic of maneuvers. When marching, he was always out of step. Couldn't do turns without tripping over his own two feet. And when it came to disassembling and reassembling his weapon......it was disastrous!! One morning, after falling down at least 15 times while out on the run, and then loosing three parts to his weapon while cleaning it, his Drill Sargent had enough.  "Fall in!!" he screamed. "You recruits are going to do sit-ups until that recruit either gets it together or my abdomen hurts too much to do any more sit-ups!!"  Then he had the Mid-western recruit move to the front of the formation to lead the exercise. With each sit-up he had to lead the cadence with:

"STRONG LIKE BULL *sit-up* SMART LIKE TREE *sit-up* STRONG LIKE BULL *sit-up* SMART LIKE TREE *sit-up*" 

That's kind of how Guacho is. LOL

Guess I need to go out and get pictures now, so y'all can put faces to the names.

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: dcwolcott on November 13, 2016, 06:49:19 PM

Okay, we're still waiting on those pictures!!!

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Holly on November 14, 2016, 02:52:37 PM

Yes Please share pictures!!

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Silver City Heritage Farm on November 18, 2016, 07:43:50 AM

;pray ;pray ;pray ;pray ;pray

Tried last night and failed.  >:(  Let's try again!  ;D

Darn, failed again! I can attach by using the buttons below, but it doesn't give me and "add to post" type option. Only Choose File and (Clear Attachment)

I'll try again after work.

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Silver City Heritage Farm on November 18, 2016, 07:45:34 AM

Oh, well....what a surprise, there they are!! It works different than others I've used. If the attachment box has a file name in it, it will upload if the files are the right size. YIPPEE!

I'll be back after work to say who's who.

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Holly on November 18, 2016, 09:32:13 AM

SO CUTE!!

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: dcwolcott on November 18, 2016, 09:09:03 PM

All your file names uploaded too, so I'm guessing their names are under their pictures?

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Silver City Heritage Farm on November 18, 2016, 10:19:52 PM

Okay, so the first picture is Guacho (pronounced WAH-choh) and he is the Pit or Rottweiler mix.

The second picture is a typical example of the behavior of Lucky the Jack Russell Terrier  and (she thinks) HER cat Simona. (Simona KNOWS, though, that Lucky is HER dog. LOL) Lucky looks--generally up--for the prey. She spots and chases, then Simona helps her catch it. Sort of. I think. Mostly I believe Simona waits for Lucky to do the work and she keeps it from getting away when Lucky flings it. Simona chose US. She teetered into our lives when she was 5-6 weeks old. She was so malnourished her skin was sloughing off her legs. She was also full of parasites. When my husband carried her to me, asking "can you save it?" she fit in the palm of his hand. She is still small, but you'd never know it by observing her. She is the ultimate barn cat that accepts us as her peons.

The third is the most common way to encounter ANY Jack Russell--hips deep into a hole chasing the critter. Lucky definitely has a strong prey drive. She uses her eyes more than any of my other dogs do, in part to her being glued to my hip for the last six years. She is bi-lingual English/Spanish and has a fairly broad vocabulary. She hasn't adjusted well to no longer being an inside dog. She looks at me with this expression in her eyes "Why don't you want me to be part of your pack anymore? Why don't I get to come be by your side all the time anymore?" Hopefully, when we get the big trailer settled, she'll get to come back in with me. When I adopted her, I was told by her previous owner that they picked her up from the road. She'd been flung from the window of a van in front of them. Lucky to be alive, so Lucky became her name. She was the first dog either one had ever owned...not the best breed for beginners in the dog world. They had two young children, one of whom was special needs. They were the types to "baby" a pet, and in Lucky's case that created a little submissive monster. She was a fear biter, a submissive pee-er, flinched at any loud sounds, and was the boss of their household. When I came in to meet her, I ignored her as soon as I saw the little river trailing down the hall to me. When I sat down on the couch, her owner said-in a high pitched talking to babies voice--"oh look, she likes you so much she's smiling at you!" I knew right then Lucky had to come home with me. That poor dog was submissive tooth baring, and had I moved my hand quickly she'd have snapped at me. Now, all these years later, she will still submissive pee when greeting strangers if they don't follow directions and ignore her. She's never overcome her fear of being in a vehicle. She can only ride if she's in her small crate, facing into the car. Otherwise she hyperventilates and makes herself sick. She is my best friend though. We definitely have a working relationship. She keeps the place clear of vermin, and I tell her she's great without too much ado.

The fourth picture is a profile of my most noble Penny. On a trip out to Paula's one day, I passed a box on the side of the road. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw heads. I drove on another quarter mile.......then had to go back. Sure enough, I found a cardboard box with half a dozen large rocks and 3 puppies. I called animal control, and assessed the pups while I waited. Penny seemed like a good prospect for what I wanted, a ride along friend that wouldn't challenge Lucky yet would partner well as a work dog. I named her Penny because of this rhyme: "See a penny, pick it up. All the day you'll have good luck." My grandma taught me this rhyme when I was little and she always picked up pennies off the ground. I do too, so Penny seemed appropriate for my new Belgian Shepherd mix pup.

The fifth is Mr. Shrimp-a-dimp Spanky. He's put on quite a bit of hair in the last two weeks, just in time for the cold snap this weekend. In this shot, he's just heard the shutter snap on the camera and is on his way to stick his nose into the lens for his close-up.

So, my group aren't LGD's, because they don't guard livestock in the traditional sense. They all are working partners on my place though. Guacho is still learning that he's to bark at people only and not everything that moves. Penny is the most aware of nuances, has a soft mouth and the desire to learn the most skills, and ignores the poultry. Lucky is just a heartless killing machine who does comedy on the side to keep me laughing. All in all they're a good pack for me.

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Silver City Heritage Farm on November 18, 2016, 10:21:39 PM

Quote from: dcwolcott on November 18, 2016, 09:09:03 PM

All your file names uploaded too, so I'm guessing their names are under their pictures?

Yes ma'am.  8)

Fortunately for us all, I had to label them to find them for the upload. That worked out well didn't it?  :P ;D ;D :P

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: dcwolcott on November 20, 2016, 10:27:22 AM

Yes, it helped for sure, but then we miss the fabulous stories that go along with the pictures.  So, just keep the stories coming!!

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: Rocklone on November 20, 2016, 12:53:20 PM

This is my labxlurcher type. Hes from Holland, so could be some dutch shepherd in him too who knows..but there is a lot of labrador in there.

(https://scontent.flhr4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/10325514_10202748871940368_4421917454470364852_n.jpg?oh=2fb0747164fcef882c019cc93e5900f4&oe=58B988E4)
(https://scontent.flhr4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/10339654_10202756749337298_7672594367794250937_n.jpg?oh=a901a99272abf15612d53ff403e659a1&oe=58C12722)

This is a purebred lurcher, my friends dog.
(https://scontent.flhr4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/10514570_731555150219232_4305008479848085179_n.jpg?oh=d7df7c0ae499cdd03001ef08a2d64a25&oe=58BF551B)

Title: Re: LGD
Post by: dcwolcott on November 21, 2016, 06:18:10 AM

I'm spoiled, having raised labs for years!  Anything mixed with a lab is bound to be a wonderful dog, in my opinion!  Usually very trainable and friendly.