# Need advice, GP attacking her own sheep



## slikchik (Feb 3, 2014)

My GP will be 2 in June. We purchased her when she was about 5 months old from a working boer farm, large litter, owner sold working pups with papers straight out of the pasture. She has always guarded her food from our small herd, never from us. But she will also run the goats off their feed and away from the scraps I bring out for them. She is sharply and immediately verbally reprimanded whenever I catch her doing this. I also catch her trying to play with the goats and I yell at her each time. She stops whenever she is yelled at, even from a hundred feet away ( distance from back door to barn). This summer we acquired 4 sheep to start a herd and they stayed in containment for the first three weeks and our GP met them through the fence. Once they were put in with the main herd, she started keeping them away from the barn, watered, minerals, ect. Again she was reprimanded each time I caught her. She especially likes to run them off the bit of grain I give them each day. Yesterday I saw her bite my ram on the leg. Today when I worked the herd I found bite wounds on his ears. I immediately pulled all the livestock into the paddock joining the barn and shut her out in the pasture. 

These are major issues that need corrected but I don't know how to effectively do it. Replacing her is my LAST option. She was expensive and is a very effective guard against the coyotes that pace the other side of the fence line at night.

Any training advice would be greatly appreciated.


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## Southern by choice (Feb 4, 2014)

While the sheep were in quarantine it would have been best for you to place her in with them. This way she understands they are part of the herd/flock she was to guard. Sometimes LGD's have a hard time accepting "strangers" in their territory...especially a new species. She may be trying to protect the goats from these "intruders". 

Taking her out of her known territory and putting her in the sheep pen puts them on an even score. She can understand she is to guard them... then they can all be moved out together.

If she is bonded with the goats and the sheep and goats do not get along she may very well consider them a threat to her known charges.

I find it much more troublesome that she "plays" with any of the livestock. Was she doing this when you got her?

The food guarding etc is something that generally occurs very early on and would have been corrected by the breeder before you got her. What kind of training did the breeder do with her?


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## slikchik (Feb 4, 2014)

She was four months old when we got her. The breeder had her, the rest of the litter, the mom, dad and another female all in the pasture with the herd. The breeder did not talk about any training so I will assume there has been none. When I got her, I received advice to the extent of

Don't let her play with the goats.
Keep her with the herd and let her do her job.

When we got her, she would occasionally try to play with the goats but was sharply corrected when we saw it. However, she came from a very large herd of extremely assertive boers (we had to push through the goats to get near the dogs, nothing like 80ish goats in your face all at once) to my small herd of very mild, submissive Nubians. Very different herd dynamics.

How do I best train her to not play with or bite the herd?


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