Pyr's doing their work, and causing a problem

 Argh, I had a huge post typed out and I lost it.  Here is what I said, basically lol..

A few things strike me about this article.  First, they say there has been an "alarming increase" in the number of attacks but don't give any numbers.  That increase could mean attacks are still in single digits, which isn't acceptable but I do like some numbers regarding things like this.  Not to mention that it could be one or two "bad apples" out of a thousand causing all the problems.  Doesn't take many aggressive dogs of a specific breed to give that breed an unwarranted label.

Second thing IS a number.  They installed a thousand Pyrs apparently, which says one thing to me: there weren't many there before.  That's a problem because way back when LGDs were more widely used out of necessity, a shepherd's dog was more valuable to him than the lives of other men, which is to say, they had their own dogs and wouldn't think of functioning without one.  For all these shepherds who didn't have the Pyrs before, were they taught how to train an LGD to work?  You can't just throw them in with the sheep and expect it to be OK, they need to be taught what is acceptable to guard against and what is not.  Did these shepherds know how to work with these dogs?

Third also relates to the number of dogs.  Were all of those dogs from parents of correct working temperament?  Or was it just assumed that "any Pyr can work"?

Suffice it to say....a lot bothers me about this.  I don't like that people got bitten, of course, but a lot of this raises alarm bells. 

I can't imagine after many years of breeding for shows, that they were able to find 1000 of these dogs in Europe that were properly bred for work.  Working ability in areas where the dog will be exposed to humans, includes the ability to discern between a real threat and simple interlopers.  A dog that attacks everything that comes through is not doing it's job - it's wasting a lot of energy (not to mention threatening his or her master's welfare just as much as allowing wolves to eat sheep).

My dogs won't touch you unless you are right up with the sheep - and even then you'll be given a million chances to retreat.  If you actually touched a sheep, you'd be knocked down and still given a chance to get away - as long as you moved away from the sheep.  One time a meter reader pushed some sheep aside to get closer to the meter on the side of the barn, and my old male Strider took his sleeve in his mouth, and led him away.  I had warned the utility company, by the way, to do the remote thing but they kept insisting on going in the pasture.  Here, Tully comes up to the meter reader and greets him like an old friend, though he'll still bark if there's sheep around and he chases the truck when he goes further towards the pasture to turn his truck around.

That's a combination of socialization and good breeding to be human-safe.  A good pyr is right up there at the top of having the potential to be safe around people.  Maremmas are second in line, but in terms of the breed as a whole, the Maremmas are more predictable.  Show breeding has made Pyrs around the world a hodgepodge of different types of working instincts. 

It's important to understand, so I'll repeat it - human aggression is not a part of livestock guarding.  There's a huge difference between a dog that will bark at an intruder, and a dog that attacks  for no good reason.  I wouldn't have such a dog here.

You can read more about wolves and LGDs (and people) here: http://lassiegethelp.blogspot.com/2008/04/wolves-coyotes-and-lgds.html (mention of my rescue Maia who's now with my friend Julie, and her sister Min who's still here), and also here: http://www.tamaracksheep.com/guardians.html (much about wolves, and crossbred LGDs who are selected for both strength against wolves and safety on small farmsteads with frequent human visitors).