LGD Succession Planning

We have two Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dogs that we raised from puppies for the purpose of guarding our flock.  Since we had never raised a guardian dog, we were a bit apprehensive that we would not get the training right, but through research utilizing information from Bill Costanzo and Texas A&M AgriLife website on LGDs, we successfully implemented our guard dogs.  After much training, they were finally turned out on their own to begin their working life, and began impressing us with their work ethic and instincts.  They have been integral to our operation, and we couldn’t imagine having sheep without them. 

I have always been partial to working dog breeds, especially Australian shepherds for working cows.  Other domestic dog breeds are great, but there is just something different about a working dog.  Once around them, it is apparent that they have a different level of intelligence when compared to a companion pet breed.  Our dogs have been one of the best things about raising our sheep.  We had no idea when we embarked on this endeavor of training our LGDs that they would become our favorite part of our ranch. 

Since our dogs are gaining in their years now, we are planning for their eventual retirement, and the future generation of guard dogs on our ranch.  We were fortunate enough to have sourced our dogs from my friend’s sister, who had a litter of puppies with her pyrenees who were proven excellent LGDs, but we were not certain that our dogs were entirely Great Pyrenees.  We heard several negatives with roaming and other un-desirable characteristics that our dogs did not exhibit, leading us to question if they were possibly a mixed breed, including some of the positive characteristics that they shared with the Maremma breed.

Our intent is to breed our best male Gandalf, but prior to breeding, we wanted to see what both of our dog’s genetic makeup was.  So my wife researched and decided to utilize Embark genetic testing to perform a breed analysis, and also to test for any genetic abnormalities in our males. 

Fully expecting a mix of different breeds, we received the news that our males were 100% Great Pyrenees, and furthermore, had a very low coefficient of inbreeding, which is a good marker to look for within a purebred for genetic diversity.  The higher the coefficient, the less genetic diversity, and visa-versa.  In other words, our boys passed their test with flying colors. 

We will update with the next steps, but we are in process now with finding a suitable mate for Gandalf.  His matchmaking profile is pretty impressive, but we are also biased.  He is very large for even a Great Pyrenees, but despite his size, he is gentle giant (to sheep).  He is invaluable during lambing, he assists mothers with pulling lambs, cleans the mothers, and stays very attentive in their post-delivery vulnerable time, especially when the mother is bleeding after lambing and delivery of the placenta.  He keeps a very close and attentive eye.  The primary traits we are hoping to improve upon is the dog’s desire to stay directly with the herd with movements throughout the day.  Our dogs do a phenomenal job of perimeter protection within our paddocks, but we would like to have a dog that stays directly with the herd at all times.  This is more important when we graze certain portions of our property with dense brush where direct line of site is interrupted.

Masson Farmer

[Written by a human, not AI]