Choosing A Livestock Guardian

By Denice Rackley

Livestock guardians can bring peace of mind knowing your stock are well-protected day and night. However, livestock guardians can also be a royal pain in the butt.

Dogs bark, climb over fencing, dig under, and leave stock going on escapades around the neighborhood. Llamas need shorn and can have challenging personalities. Donkeys can bite and kick and prove challenging.

In short, when guardians are good at their job and easy to manage with awesome personalities, they are a huge asset to producers. However, many are challenging and not suited to be kept as guardians.

The time and money invested in finding, purchasing, and raising a guardian can be significant. It is all wasted when that guardian doesn’t work out. Careful selection of guardians can stack the deck in your favor.

Anatolian Shepherd

Guardian behavior varies significantly
Guardian behavior consists of alerting to danger, moving stock away from danger, patrolling pastures, and pursuing predators. Some individuals will exhibit multiple behaviors, but each breed of livestock guardian has breed-specific tendencies associated with the way they guard. These behaviors are instinctual, you may be able to influence them, but you will not be able to change them significantly. Each livestock guardian dog breed has a style of guardian that is typical of each breed, although you will see some individual differences.

Livestock guardian dogs

The most common LGD in the U.S. are Akbash, Anatolian Shepherd, Great Pyrenees, and Maremma.  Other breeds include Spanish Ranch Mastiff, Tartra, Saroplenic, Komondor and Kangal. Each breed has been developed for its native land, stock, as well as the common management practices and predators encountered.  Some guardians are more tolerant of strangers, some have a closer guarding style, and some are more territorial.

Breeds like the Maremma and Great Pyrenees are closer guarding dogs preferring to stay near the flock and alert to predators. The Akbash and Anatolian dogs are more likely to patrol, intercept, and pursue predators.

Robin Rigg, in his extensive case studies of guardian breeds, found Great Pyrenees and Maremmas to be more attentive to stock and more trustworthy than Anatolians and Komondors.  His studies showed a greater proportion of Komondors bit people and more Anatolians injured stock.  He also found Komondors to be very territorial and prone to bonding more to a specific location rather than to stock.

LGDs need a low prey drive to live with stock and not harm them.  Most canines respond to movement; when something runs, they chase it. The usual sequence of events is search, stalk, chase, bite, kill, then eat.  Selective breeding of dogs has broken this sequence at different stages.  Terriers will complete the chain of events while Pointers stop before any chasing occurs.  Prey drive is innate to carnivores; the amount of drive varies from very low to very high.  LGDs need to be selected for low prey drive so that they can coexist with would be prey animals.

Sex of guardian                                   

The sex of guardians can make a difference in their suitability for their job. Most producers have far more success with female donkeys than studs and geldings. Both llamas females and geldings work well. Intact male llamas aren’t a good option.   Intact and altered livestock guardian dogs (ldg) make suitable working dogs. Altered lgds keep their mind centered on the job at hand. Intact lgds tend to patrol and are more apt to wonder. Using intact guardians of any species comes more responsibility.

Matching guardian animals and their guarding style with your particular situation will add to your success.

Checklist for Choosing a Guardian

Before choosing a guardian, there are several things to consider:

• Does the guardian need to stay in the pasture with stock 24x7 or am I and my neighbors ok with them being outside the fence?

• When the LGD barks at night or the donkey makes noise, is that going to cause tension between myself and neighbors?

• Am I willing to put in the work required to raise a guardian? Do I have time to supervise interactions with the stock and for the required vet visits?

• Am I capable of training the guardian to be handled - come when asked, walk on a lead and teach it to accept the care it will need?

• Am I willing to research breeds of guardians and talk to breeders to find one that will suit my needs?

• Do I have the stock with the right temperament to raise a guardian in the pasture and a good location for them to be together to encourage bonding and enable supervision?

• Do I need protection Now, or can I wait a year while I raise a guardian? Should I look for an adult dog or a different type of guardian- donkey, llama?

• With my situation, do I need one guardian or more than one?

Kopf Canyon Ranch -  Idaho

Once you answer these questions, the next step is talking to breeders and fellow stockmen about individual experiences, guardian animals, LGD, and available pups.  Asking questions of the breeder/owner and those that own guardians from them is vitally important.

• Describe how the animals are kept and their guarding style?

Are they loose, going anywhere on the farm, or do they stay behind electric fencing?  Do they choose to be with stock? Would they rather be on the porch, or at the neighbors, or patrolling?

• How long have you been raising them?

• Are there working and health guarantees?

For dogs – Are health tests done before breeding? Hips X-rayed?

Will they stand behind their animals after they are sold, or are you on your own?

• Tell me about the sire and dam?

Both need to working well to consider an animal from them.

How do your guardians interact with strangers and stock?        

What problems have you encountered with them, and how have you dealt with them? Have they injured stock? How do you correct them?

You need to be ok with having the same problems.

You also need to be ok with how they have dealt with problems because  odds are the animals from them will exhibit similar behavior that need corrects.

• Do you have references?

You need to speak with their vet and others who have purchased their animals.

Are the animals sound in mind and body? 

What problems have they had? Would they get another guardian from them or not? 

It is hard, or impossible, to separate mistakes in raising from those characteristics in guardians that contribute to difficulties. However, if producers have not been able to solve the problems, I would consider that when purchasing a guardian.

Determining if you need a guardian and what type of guardian will suit your situation best requires research and thought. Some guardians will work well in smaller pastures with livestock or fowl. Others are more suited to a range situation. Once you choose the breed of the guardian, the real work begins.

Finding and raising a good guardian isn’t an easy task. However, keeping the checklist and questions I have outlined will give you a good place to begin. The work and time invested will be well worth it if you add a guardian to your operation that gives you peace of mind on those starless nights when predators bypass your herd and flock to dine elsewhere.