LGD Puppy Chasing the goats

[mistivydel]

Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice about how to get my Great Pyr puppy to quit chasing our two Nigerian Dwarf goats! Here's her story:

She's about 10 months old right now. She grew up in a barn with a larger herd of Nubian goats and two other Great Pyrs (one older, not really trained to guard and another puppy, her brother) until about two months ago when she came here with us. She's never even been inside a house, so I feel pretty confident that she has good potential for being a dedicated guardian for the goats and not too attached to humans. She gets along well with our two little does, they'll nap next to each other and follow each other around calmly. The only time that she shows actual aggression towards them is when she has food, so we're careful to feed her separate from them. The problem is that she is a puppy, and she'll chase them like crazy if given the opportunity and she's in a playful mood. I don't think that she's actually showing aggression towards them, but she's already almost twice their size and she'll nip at them as if they were puppies.

So when she first came home with us our older, feisty doe would headbutt her if the puppy tried to play. We NEVER interfered with this, we encouraged the doe to do this as much as possible!! It didn't seem to be very effective in actually getting the puppy to stop chasing and playing though, so we took a tip from another post on here about how to get LGD's to stop killing chickens and anytime we witnessed her chasing the goats we would push her onto her back and scream at her at the top of our lungs - NO! BAD DOG! - all of that, until she would sigh, stop wriggling, and submit. It scared her at first, but hasn't been successful in actually stopping the behavior. I wish that we had more time to be outside and really be consistent with the discipline when we see her chasing, but we just can't be out there all day. I've seen others advise to never leave LGD puppies alone and free-roaming with livestock until you're sure that they'll behave, so for the past few weeks she's been tied up on a long chain inside the fence where the goats hang out and graze. The goats actually spend a lot of time around her when she's chained up, but then they're also noticeably much more comfortable to go out into more open spaces to graze since they know she can't chase them (they have about 2 acres to roam).
I feel really bad for having her chained up like this during the day. She has all night to run around the 2 acres, and I make sure to go out at least one hour or so a day to just throw sticks and run her around away from the goats, but I wish she could just roam free with the goats.

So my questions are:
Are there other training methods other than the rolling over & yelling angrily method that can be really effective?
Is it horribly cruel to have her chained up like that, with time for exercise every day and night time to run free?
Will she eventually grow out of the ultra-playful stage after her puppy and then adolescent stages, and maybe just stop chasing on her own?
(On another note, her other bad habit is jumping up on humans - any tips for that??)

Any other advice you have would be great!

 

[secuono]

Put her back with the adults. Or smack her or shock her right as she goes for the goats, but make yourself invisible so she doesn't associate you with the pain, but the goats.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

It would make sense to put her back with the adults as long as they can teach her some manners. If she starts chasing them and getting them scared obviously it's not working.

 

[Southern by choice]

smack her

REALLY????????


Mistivydel-

Sounds like you are doing the right things and you have great questions.
I may have more time to respond tomorrow but for now .... NEVER EVER SMACK OR HIT A GREAT PYRENEES EVER!

YOU WILL RUIN YOUR DOG! You will destroy the trust of your dog.

I understand you chaining her however this can create the very opposite effect you are hoping for. But no it is not cruel, just usually counterproductive.

I would like to know why they re-homed her. If I read your post correctly she was not actually being used as a LGD. ?

Has she gone into her first heat? ... this is common with females going into their first sometimes second heat.

 

[mistivydel]

Southern by choice -

She was intended to be used as an LGD. A friend of ours got her and her brother to guard her goats, but it turned out that she couldn't afford to care for both of them so we brought her to be with us. She was spayed about a month ago, and she had not come into heat before that.

Just to clarify - we only have the two goats. The older one is almost 3 and the younger is around a year. The older one is just more fiery and fights back, the younger one is more of a lover and doesn't really defend herself.

 

[Shelly May]

The chain is a problem for me! If a goat comes near her there is a chance that a leg could get caught and wrapped around
in it, a broken goat leg for sure. A shock collar for the dog is a option if you have no other choice, they sell these at TSC and
some farm stores and pet stores, they have different settings from warnings to real pain, maybe the warning will be enough.
But don't let her see you when you push the botton. Maybe you could just put her and the bigger older goat up in a small area
for a few days until the older goat teaches her a lesson, But you would have to have the time to spend with them to make sure
they don't really hurt each other. There are many ideas, But reinforcement from your voice is always a good one.

 

[poorboys]

SHE IS PLAYING WITH THE NIGERIANS, THEIR SMALL, AND ANXIOUS, I WOULD PUT HER BACK INTO THE ADULT PEN, SHE NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND A FIRM NOOOO!!!!! NEVER PUT A GUARD DOG IN WITH SMALL GOATS UNTILL THE DOG IS GROWN,,,, I LET MY LDGS WELP IN THE KID GOAT PEN, BUT THEY ARE USUALLY SOLD BEFORE THEY START CHASING AND CHEWING ON THE KIDS, I WANT THEM TO BE EXPERIENCE AROUND GOATS, THE DOG THAT'S IN WITH THE KIDS IS 3 YRS OLD, AND KNOW'S HOW TO PROTECT AND GUARD. START HER OVER WITH THE OTHER TWO AND SPEND TIME TELLING HER NO, AND SHE WILL LEARN. WHEN SHE'S OLDER YOU MIGHT BEABLE TO PUT HER BACK IN WITH THE SMALLER GOATS. NEVER HIT THEM, THEY UNDERSTAND THE WORD NO AND WILL RESPOND TO YOU, BUILD UP YOUR TRUST IN HER AND MAYBE GIVE HER SPECIAL ATTENTION WHEN SHE DOES SOMETHING RIGHT, HOPE YOU GOOD LUCK WITH HER.

 

[mistivydel]

I appreciate the advice about putting her in with the adults, but I only have the two goats who are both full grown and are not able to keep the puppy in check. Does anyone else have suggestions for training her out of these bad habits?

 

[Kida]

Disclaimer: I don't have an LGD or a pyr, but I do have a large strong willed male malamute and he's successfully been trained to do and not do a variety of things, so take this as general advice.

We go to a training class every week. He loves to show off, so while he would ignore me at home, he listens like the perfect pupil in school and that does eventually translate to home, albeit not as 'cleanly'. For jumping on people, I make a sharp angry 'ahh' and refuse to acknowledge him until he sits. In fact in order to get food, treats, toys, to go inside or out, etc he has to sit first and if he's extra rowdy I make him lay down as well to get his focus. The only time I do any physical 'discipline' of him is if he tries to jump on our toddler, then I grab him by the fur on his hip and shoulder and shove him as far away as I can. At first he would immediately come back and try to do it again, but after a few months he knows the shove means he's in trouble. He still does it on occasion if he's particularly excited but not nearly as much.

We feed prey model diet so I had a particular problem getting him to let our rabbits free range since they're his food and he knows it, but basically when I began I'd go out to play with him and let the rabbits out into the yard. If he even got 'that look' in his eye (you know the look. The one that says I'm going to get in trouble but it's soo worth it) I'd do the angry 'ahh' again and if he stopped looking at them I gave him a snack or scratches (no throwing toys because I don't want him to even think about chasing anything). If he insisted on going after them, I put him in his kennel and go inside leaving him alone and the rabbits mucking about. When he stopped whining/barking I go out and let himback out. I repeat this as long as I have time for as often as I could until he now lays there and they hop around him.

We also taught the command 'get it' which is what we say to get him to run off neighborhood dogs and other pests. At this point, he seems to know what to get rid of on his own (for instance if I introduce him to another dog, that dog is ok, but if one wanders up he chases it).

Hope that was at least a little useful

 

[honeymeadows]

My GP would chase the chickens she guarded when she was bored - around the same age. Big enough to do harm, but still immature. We borrowed someones electronic collar for a few weeks. It took 2 zaps and several years later she would never consider chasing one of the chickens she guards. They really work, and the lessons taught are taught quickly and last. You are not the one to 'punish' in the dogs mind - they only know that a certain behavior is not a comfortable fun thing anymore.