Re: [PyrNet-L] Work, Show or Pet?

[pyreau@crosslink.net (Jack and Charlotte Perry)]

>   Know many pyr rescue groups/people won't let their rescue pyrs go to large
>working farms if the place isn't entirely fenced in so pyr can't escape. Most
>working farms that are large cannot fence in their place with fencing a pyr
>cannot escape from. So it presents a problem: Many large working farms that
>want a pyr to use as a livestock guardian dog cannot get rescue pyrs. Yet this
>is what the breed is designed to do. So....what is the real problem? 

I think this is a real problem. In talking to farmers in my state who have
used Pyrs to guard their livestock for many years, it turns out that the
life span of their dogs is only about 2 years...they get hit by cars or are
shot or poisoned. As I understand it, Great Pyrenees are territorial guard
dogs.  Rather than attacking predators that come into their territory, they
warn them off by  patrolling the boundaries, barking and marking.  The Dept.
of Agriculture pamphlet states that many times 500 acres is not enough land
for a Pyr to gaurd and they will take on additional land. It is not a
question of abandonning their livestock but rather of increasing the
predator-free area. I've talked to a number of people who have told me that
their Pyrs guard the neighbor's land as well as their own - even had a call
from someone whose neighbor had moved with their Pyrs and was loosing lambs
at an alarming rate. Problems occur when the neighbors do not want to be
guarded or when there is a road in the way.  Although we have had dogs that
have gone to livestock guarding homes and have done well, I am really
hesitant to place dogs in LGD situtations unless I have personally seen the
fencing.

Kerry Woods, you can probably give us much more informed info on this.

Charlotte