Ratsicles
Posted : 7/18/2007 1:54:56 PM
Lets say that is not a pet but a working dog, how do you train him to do what you want, how o you teach him that he can attack coyotes but not you? you need time to teach him that
You really don't. Pyrenees at least were, and still are, bred for the purpose of guarding flocks. It's genetic for them. Most of them need VERY little direction as to what to do.
Generally, when a LG puppy is being trained, it is penned with a lamb/kid whatever of similar size and pretty much left alone with it. Once it has bonded to that kid/lamb, it is slooowly introduced to the rest of the flock. Generally you'll want to pen up the puppy somewhere near the rest of the flock where they can see each other but not really interact. The rest of the flock, seeing that the kid/lamb that the puppy was raised with is not afraid of him and actively wants to be around him, will become curious and slightly less afraid of the scary predator in their midst.
After a length of time when they have acclimated to him, it's safe to allow supervised interaction. The puppy, being bonded to goats/sheep will; not try to hurt the flock, but the flock may still be a bit wary and could injure a young puppy by butting/trampling him. So you'll want to supervise for a while, penning the puppy up near the flock when you're not around. Once the flock gets to the point that they are no longer defensive in any way towards the puppy, it's safe to leave them alone together. The dog will learn learn the boundaries of it's territory and will run the fence line periodically, barking the whole time, to ward off predators. This is something that they simply DO, not something that must be trained into them. In general, this is a big enough deterrant that nothing would dare come on the property. If something DID come on the property, it would have a 100+ pound angry dog to deal with. Though they bond mainly to the sheep/goats, they protect poultry by not allowing predators on the property in the first place. In general, the dog itself ignores poultry as long as it has been acclimated to chickens and such being present from an early age.
So you see, there is really very little training other than very basic "leave it, come, etc." If you're saying that the 5-10 minutes of daily training it takes to do that takes too much time away from the problematic dog, well, then I respectfully disagree with you. That 5 minutes or so will not be missed.
Training a LG is not like training a herding dog- in that not much formal training has to be done. If you have a decently bred puppy out of working lines, he should do the majority of this stuff on his own, with little direction from you.
**content removed. off topic**
Reminder: This is a theoretical discussion about the risks of adding a new dog to a household with an existing dog problem. It is not, and will not be personal.