Grazing With Leslie shares some wonderful notes on raising livestock guardian dogs.
In the immediate future, I’m going to focus on these points:
- Keeping the dogs with the sheep at all times.
- Not allowing the dogs to roam too freely until they are at least 24 months old. (My older puppies are only 9 months old right now.)
- Showing affection to the dogs only while they are doing their job with the animals. Otherwise they must be ignored.
- Training them with leads so that they don’t chase sheep or lambs.
She also links to the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension on LGDs: https://sanangelo.tamu.edu/research/lgd/ This page has links to articles detailing how to build various devices to train the dogs not to chase animals or to go through fences. I might be using some of the ideas in the near future.