It's not so much a "grooming" issue as it is a health of the animal issue... it gets a bit warm down here and heavy coats (common on Pyrs) make for very long summers for the dog. My Pyr/Toli cross (my avatar) has the long neck fur/hair of the Pyr, but the overall build and shorter coat of the Toli. And boy can I tell you, he sheds! Don't be sorry for asking questions! Better to learn in advance and save yourself (and potentially the animals) from issues down the road.
I don't believe (never have) in getting my dogs "fixed" (NOT a buyer of the "spay/neuter everything" line of thought). So, if getting a male female pair, you have to be aware of heat cycles to prevent unwanted mating. I'm a LGD newbie and have only had Mel (my avatar) for ~2 years. I got him from
@Southern by choice who is our resident LGD guru
From what I've learned and from my understanding, male/female pairs seem to work best... so if there's some chance you might like to breed later down the road, siblings won't work. Male/male pairing can work or might not depending on dominance issues... female/female pairing can cause the greatest issues, seem to have the highest rate of failure.
The most important aspect of the pairing seems to be the way the LGD does their job... There are patrollers, and there are watchers. The patroller seems to do just that. They go out and patrol the perimeter to mark territory and head off threats. The watcher tends to stay with the herd and keep anything from getting in close. Of course if the patroller gets into it with something and needs help, you'd hope the other would come to help out once the animals they are protecting are in a safe place. Hopefully you'd be there to help out once they alert you to there being an issue. They have a pretty loud bark... and it carries. This can be an issue if you have city type neighbors... It's not really a good thing to have 2 patrollers paired off as who would be watching the animals? Also, two watchers aren't ideal as any threat would be right up in with the herd before the LGDs would get involved.
I'm sure if I'm missing something there or have it "not quite right" or incomplete, Southern will jump in here and correct me
