I haven’t mentioned the puppies yet in all of my ramblings. Azlan and Sassy had puppies on November 15, 2009. She had 10, five girls and five boys. They are turning out to be quite good dogs. They stay with the goats almost all the time. They have been raised with the baby goats, the chickens, and the cow. We are keeping one of the males, his name is Dozer, and he is doing really well.
Well now the pups are 4 months old, they have had two sets of puppy shots, and have been wormed, and they are for sale. All we have left is two females and three males. If you would like more information, please email me.
So now we have the hunt for a couple more pyrs underway. A friend of mine in east Texas knew that I was looking for a couple more dogs. She is part of a pyr rescue group in that area. She had one dog that she thought would make a decent LGD, and then she got word about another pair at a farm that could not keep the dogs, because the goats were to scared of them.
I had a trip planned to east Texas to go pick up a couple goats, and to meet with my friend to pick up all three dogs, and give her Ben and Lady. She was going to work with Lady to try to get her to work better, or place her as a companion dog in someone’s home. She also had better resources to get Ben’s leg fixed (on that note, she got Ben’s leg fixed for $300!).
So, these new dogs were Azlan, Lucy and Mistletoe. We had heck trying to keep them all in the pasture, they were always getting out, and in the process, Lady took off, and we have no clue where she went. So, now we are down to three dogs. Azlan, Mistletoe, and Sassy. Azlan and Sassy got together last year, and through that process, ended up having 10 puppies. The puppies are doing really good, learning how to guard, and getting to know their place with the goats. Sassy runs all over the place, we see her every now and again, but when we can catch her we are going to put her up till we can find her a new home somewhere. Azlan has turned into an awesome guardian dog, and he seems to be teaching his pups the tricks of the trade, they are doing really well themselves. Mistletoe does ok, but she is without the goats more than she is with, so we will be returning her to my friend in east Texas.
As I had started my search for an older dog (to hopefully help to train the puppy), a post showed up on one of the yahoo groups that I belong to about a couple of dogs over in east Texas that had to be rescued or they would be shot. I talked Jerry into going and getting them with me. The male supposedly had a ’slight’ limp, but not a big deal. Yeah, right. He was the easiest to catch, because he had a dislocated hip! The female on the other hand, was a handful to catch, as she was very anxious. After about 4 hours of trying to catch these dogs, we finally got them in the back of the truck and headed home.
That night, after we got home, we put them in the livestock trailer to keep them for the night. The next day, they really wanted to meet the goats, so we let them. We kept an eye on them for a little while, but they were doing great. That was Lady and Ben. Lady was ok, but she didn’t want to stay in pens we put her in, and got to the point where she could care less about the goats. Ben on the other hand, loved his goats, but could not really do a good job at protecting them because of his hip. We took him to the vet, and it was gonna be $800 to cut the leg off, or $1200 to fix it with no guarantee. That was just not doable at the time. I looked everywhere for someone who might could help us with his leg, and found no one.
Then I hit kidding season. We figured that Ben, with his disposition would be perfect to ‘baby sit’ the new babies. He really love them, he would let them crawl all over him, and if they hurt his leg by stepping or jumping on it, he would not snap at them, he would just move. We had a doghouse in the pen, so that if Ben needed to ‘get away’ for a bit, he could. Jerry went out to the ‘nursery’ one morning to feed, and could not find any of the babies! He called Ben out of the doghouse to feed him, and trailing right behind him was all three babies! They slept with him, instead of mama’s. Now, we noticed, as Ben was in with all the newborns, that he got to loving them ‘too much’. Ben got to the point where he would not let the moms near their babies! He would bark and snap and growl with the babies up underneath him to keep the moms away. THAT WAS NOT GONNA WORK! So Ben had to go out in the pasture.
Another dog hunt was underway, I could not keep dogs that wouldn’t, or couldn’t do their jobs, and keeping moms from babies was not a good thing.
Ok, so now I’m at the point where I have decided on the Great Pyrenees as the livestock guardian dogs that I want. So where to get them from and how old??? The how old question was one that I already knew the answer to, I wanted dogs (I already knew that I needed 2 or 3) that were approximately 1 1/2 to 2 years of age. At that point, it didn’t really matter to me male or female, I knew I just needed dogs.
I found a puppy from a breeder, that was reasonably priced. So we decided to get her. She was 3/4 Pyr and 1/4 Anatolian. I brought her home, and we did all the things that we were supposed to do for her. Put her in a pen by the goats for a couple months, during which time we walked her through the goats, and let her in with the goats, but always on a lead. Well, when it cam time to let her out with the goats by herself, it was a nightmare! She wouldn’t stay with the goats at all, and some of them she chased! We have goats that have messed up ears because of her. Well, we tried to correct every way we could, and after having her for over a year, we are still not that impressed. Oh well, I guess it could’ve been worse.
Finding just the right guard dog for you and your goats can be very discouraging, but the dog you need is out there, you just have to be patient and find it.
I have not said a whole lot about the dogs that we have. I really should, as they are the invisible (not quite) backbone to practically the whole operation. If it were not for them, we would be losing animals to predators all the time.
Oh, I guess I should start at the beginning. When we bought this place in January of 2007, the guy that we bought it from left about a dozen chickens and 4 sheep. Needless to say, within just a month or so, all the chickens were dead, and 2 of the sheep were. Now, a couple of the chickens just died, but the rest of them were eaten, by something. One of the sheep was killed by our own dogs (they are not around anymore) and one of the sheep, we think was killed by a cougar. The other two, we traded to a friend of ours who raised sheep.
After I started doing research to try to find a dog, I had it narrowed down to three different breeds: The Anatolian Shepherd, The Great Pyrenees, or The Komondor. I really wanted Komondor, but I wasn’t real sure about them in the heat that we get around here, as they are the dogs that look like they have dreadlocks. Then we started talking about maybe moving to North Dakota, to a much bigger farm up there, so the heat would not be a factor. I started looking around for a couple, and could not find any, any where. I finally found a breeder in Florida, but they breed show dogs, and wanted $2000.00 a piece! I couldn’t believe it, so that was out of the question.
I discarded the idea of the anatolian, because I wasn’t sure, being a short haired dog, how they would handle the cold up there, and I was not about to put a warm weather dog through that.
So that is how I got stuck on the idea of the pyr.
In all my ramblings, I have not said much about our dogs. We have had a heck of a time trying to find a couple of good dogs. Let me back up a little more. The first year and a half or so that we had animals, we kept losing them, we lost 38 chickens in one year, then we lost 24 chickens after that, not including the goats that we lost; all due to predators.
So, I got to doing some research on Guardian animals. Basically if you want an animal to guard your livestock, you pretty much have 3 options; Llamas, Donkeys, or Dogs. With all the research that I did I didn’t like the idea of Llamas because, well, some predators will kill them, then what’s the point? Donkeys may work great for some people, but I have heard a lot of negative stuff about them, too. I got to looking into Guardian Dogs. Now, there are several breeds that have been bred for hundreds of years, to specifically guard goats and sheep. A lot of breeds have not quite made a big impact over here in the United States yet, but are very common in other countries. A great place to start with research is lgd.org. They have a wealth of information, not only about the different breeds, but also about health issues, breeding issues, etc.
