LGD puppy - does she need a friend?

YourRabbitGirl

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Our LGD puppy is in or garden, which has a 6 ft chainlink fence around it, and nothing growing in it, and it has a nice size shed in it for Sheera(the lgd). The chickens pen runs all the way around the garden, and the have their barn too...we let Sheera out to mingle with the chickens while we are outside. We went on a one day trip Sat, came back, a chicken had flown into the pen, and she ATE its back side, and neck out(it’s dead). We have a shock collar on her, so when we have a couple minutes, we let her out to be with the chickens, go inside, watch through the window, and make sure she is good while we “aren’t watching”. Then we put her back in her pen(the garden), and she has tons of toys, interactive toys, toys tied to the fence, etc. She is 4 1/2 months old.

She is great at doing perimeter checks, barking at bad things, everything like that...but she just doesn’t like the duck hens, and our smaller hens. Would it help her if we got her an animal to bond with that would help keep her distracted? Like a doe, or kid, or lamb, or puppy, or anything? Just to keep her occupied during the day?
There are five major livestock guardian dog breeds that farmers should find for their goats: Anatolian Shepherd, Great Pyrenees, Kuvasz, Maremma Sheepdog, and Tibetan Mastiffs. we have Tibetan mastiffs. they are great.
 

Ridgetop

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LGDs are worth all rhe work! When she hits 14-18 months, she may have regression to playing with her 'buddies". this is the age when people start to think their dogs are not any good. You just have to work with her and if you notice that you have chickens missing, go back to the earlier training.

Our Anatolian puppy marked up one tiny lamb when she was 3-4 months old playing with them. She was put in with the rams and learned not to try to play bite any of the big sheep. LOL She is 16 months old and had been doing great with both lambs and larger sheep. Suddenly we had a lamb turn up with punctures on her rear hocks. it looked like she had been caught in wire and cut herself up. We removed that lamb and Angel apparently made "besties" with another lamb. Another episodes of punctures on rear hocks. Removed that lamb with the same injuries. Talked to our breeder and he immediately said she was in the teenage play stage. She would select one lamb as her best friend and playmate and try to play with it like it was another puppy Sadly for the lamb, when it got bitten, instead of turning around and biting Angel like a puppy would have done it ran. We have been watching her, and scolding her as soon as she tries to run with the sheep. When we call her and scold her she breaks off and leaves the lambs. Now we put wire around the bottom of the corrals. (Double use - it keeps the younger lambs in when we separate them from their mamas.) We noticed another lamb that looked marked and we will check him over but she seems to be leaving them alone now, Looking at her age and the time period Erick said these dogs go through this behavior, I think she would have tried to do this teenage play biting sooner but she was not with the sheep. She came in false season and was kenneled for several weeks, then 2 weeks later she came into a real season and was kenneled another 3 weeks, then she got a huge deep slice across her upper side and was locked up with stitches for 2 weeks since she was not supposed to run around. She also was a "conehead" which would have been dangerous to let her run with that on. Considering that she was confined off and on for 3 months, that would account for why it suddenly this behavior did not show up sooner.

Anyway, I am just relating this to you so if your puppy tries this teenage sort of behavior you will recognize it and not get discouraged. One thing about this behavior, it means that the dog considers the flock his/her pack which will lead to stronger protection once the dog is grown.
 

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