Livestock Guardian Great Pyrenees

Comment by Joseph Gentzel on September 15, 2008 at 3:43pm

I have always bred and supplied Pyrs to working homes and situations. I love the breed for what it came to us originally. I just today had a wonderful talk with a couple who came about six months ago and bought Juno to guard their little lambs. June had lived here in our kennel the first 3-4 years of her life. In the conversation they had had a stray Pyr just arrive on site and not being able to find its owners after an exhaustive search, felt its was God's contribution to their little family. So today she was telling how Juno taught the new Pyr how to work. I had to smile inwardly and think "Who taught Juno?", as this is a urban couple without any background in working, sans phone calls to me, has had such great success. I have seen this story many times over the past 35 plus years. While there are problems at times with young and old Pyrs, they work naturally and in most cases easily. I hope to document here as many pictures of Pyrs working and document all the settings where they work. Pictured is "Chevy" aka Aneto Like A Rock who lives with GPC member Susan Price in Canada. Chevy works part time and part time he is Susan's beloved companion (her "little man" from when he was still little, if you will) and is a pretty good show dog being a champion and a multiple working group placing Pyr in very limited showing.
Joe

Comment by Melissa Metzler on September 15, 2008 at 4:52pm

Wonderful story!! :)

Thanks for sharing!

My guys don't guard livestock yet, but we plan moving next spring to a larger house with acres of land and plan on having Dairy goats. So for now I will be just learning and enjoying everyones stories and experiences. :)

Comment by pat ramapuram on September 15, 2008 at 6:26pm

I keep reading about all the training they need and my experience with them is that I bought 4 little lambs and brought them home. The 2 show dogs went NUTS- they instantly knew exactly what they were and who they were for. And that pretty much was training-they went into the field and started right in with guard behavior and were always so gentle with the lambs. Every lamb born needed to be inspected and maybe cleaned up a little bit and you would find the lambs sleeping snuggled up to a dog more often than not. My first 3 dogs finished their CH while they were guarding the sheep! Brought them in on Fri for a bath and to the shows on the weekends.

Comment by Joseph Gentzel on September 16, 2008 at 10:14am

Couple things. In thinking about my first comment, I may have implied that the urban couple who took Juno was doing nothing to learn about livestock guardian behavior past calling me. That certainly is not true. They are very sincere people who have worked very hard to find out everything they could from all credable sources about their lambs and now the Great Pyrenees. They just had not done it before is all.
The other thing is, while I agree completely with Pat and Susan, and my comments, I know from being on the LGD list for years all is not always well. There are problems at times with puppies and certainly older dogs. I can only say in over 70 situations in these many years I have not had a failure and many of these were older dogs, that had never seen any livestock, but I respect and believe the soruce of this information, so its not wise for me to say its always this way.
I am suspecting that the failures that do occur may be related to the owners and situations more than the breed itself. Maybe not fair for me to say this, but I am only using a generality.
My observation that older dogs are very sucessful even when they come from non working environments clears flies in the face of traditional knowledge. I am not comfortable with this as I love history and tradition, but I have to be honest, they do work and work easily in most cases. When there is a little bump in the road, we have always been able to solve it easily and without great problems. Some day I will encounter that situation that does not fall into any of the above catagories, but that even will not change the preponderance of experience and observations I offer.
I know I really aggrivate some working breeders with this information and for that I can only say its not personal, its what I know to be correct and my experience is not small or short lived. I have wondered if part of the really hostile reaction I get sometimes is I may be perceived as deminishing their one claim to fame i.e. "Their dogs come from working stock". When IMHO all Pyrs come from working stock and its still there completely left to its normal development. You will see all over the internet that somehow the working dogs are something special. They are, they are Great Pyrenees. Period!!
Since I am on my high soap box, the other side of that coin is we show breeders many times look down our noses at the "working" breeders and we sometimes are not too suttle about that. I'll give you another example of a working bred Pyr that is really quite good.
Janet that owns Leo, fell in love with the breed with Gabriella aka Gabby. Gabby's pedigree is pure working dog and you can not see anything close to a recognizable kennel anywhere on it. Gabby is really quite lovely. Very pretty head, great coat. She is sound coming and going and side gait is nice enough. She is a bit small, but within the standard. Many of us had and still have much less. Janet and Lee have no information about sibblings, or other relatives as far as genetic problems. No OFA hips in sight or anything else for that matter. But they have done it all with Gabby and she is CHIC certified and they have bred her to Leo who is also CHIC certified.
The French have a very proud tradition of taking an unregistereed "Dog from the mountains" and going through a procedure to qualify the issue of a breeding with this Pyr as registerable in the French registration system. Its always been this way there, even today when there really are not any dogs that are from indiginious stock, so its much like it is here with some of our working dogs.
Joe

Joe

Comment by pat ramapuram on September 16, 2008 at 10:27am

The main problem I have seen is mostly with puppies, sometimes with adults- is that they like to chase the lambs. Chelle had an excellant idea which I have also used and that is to let them out with the livestock with a collar and dragging a lead- when they chase they keep stepping on the lead and it pretty much breaks that habit. Many problems stem fromjust throwing the dog into the field without a proper introduction. Pyrs naturally guard what they consider is theirs- but they need some time to understand what is their responsibility. For my Pyrs that go into a working situation I refer them to Catherine Dela Cruz- she has some great training info on LGDs

Comment by Joseph Gentzel on September 16, 2008 at 10:51am

Yes, Catherine is the best.
I don't want young puppies in with livestock unless there are working Pyrs present or the shepherd (you) present. Puppies are puppies. I do want them right in the middle of the livestock though 24/7, preferably a little fenced in area or an area adjacent to them in the barn for the livestock and puppies to really get to know each other. When the puppies are with the livestock, never, that is never with an emphysis, let them pester any animals. Swift appropriate correction always. They are smart and want to please you. At that point you gotta use your head gently introducing the pup to the livestock unrestrained and evaluate carefully whats taking place. If the pup does do something wrong, take ir right back to the prior step i.e. fenced in area, etc. Generally they will be over six months old before reliable, but I have seen one four month (they were large size for four months) old brother and sister pair who had charge of a large pasture of dairy goats, and they were wonderful. Not recommended though generally.
All good points Pat.
Joe

Comment by Michelle Kay on September 16, 2008 at 1:09pm

Just wanted to add to what Pat said...My dogs were pets & house dogs before we moved across the state & bought an acreage with a barn with two of my Pyrs specifically in mind...I first started by allowing interaction only through a fence...Then worked with the dogs & goats in a small penned area with leashed introductions...Then we did the dragging the lead thing until Pippin's (he was my hard case with chasing) behavior became appropriate...After than they were allowed in only the small pen together for awhile until I saw all was well &, at that point, I opened up all their area for them.
I will say that leaving the lead on was the best training technique I used...Worked like a charm!
Chelle

Comment by pat ramapuram on September 19, 2008 at 7:55am

One day I had a person show up on my doorstep with a less than one day old orphaned lamb-orphan lambs are NOT fun- very difficult to raise and keep alive. Well I also had a 3 week old Pyrenees litter in the house. So I looked at Tia (the mom) and thought - SHE has milk and introduced the little lamb. And that was that Tia took that little lamb and raised it right with the litter of puppies! The lamb did fine and the puppies were certainly introduced to livestock!!

Comment by Melissa Metzler on September 19, 2008 at 7:58am

I love that Pat!!! Thanks for sharing!!!

If anyone has ever seen the Animal Planet's Breed all about it for the Great Pyrenees - they do highlight how much of a great surrogate the great Pyrenees is and featured one raising tiger cubs! :)

Comment by Joseph Gentzel on September 19, 2008 at 9:52am

Great story Pat. Sort of a twist on the historic notion that puppies that guard the sheep must nurse at the Ewe.

Comment

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next ›
• Page