A good livestock guardian dog

I grew up on a sheep operation with around 1200 head of ewes. After leaving the area and going to school I started to learn more about the problems that livestock operations have with predation of their livestock. I found that my fellow students in the Animal Science and Wildlife Biology programs, who had a similar experience to me and had seen an established pack of livestock guardian dogs at work, saw far fewer problems with predation of their livestock than those that had seen ineffective guardian dogs or that had not used guardian dogs at all.

In a study done by Jeffrey S. Green, “Livestock-Guarding Dogs for Predator Control: Cost, Benefits, and Practicality,” it was found that livestock guardian dogs were an effective means of preventing predation on sheep operations across the US and Canada, but not in every case.

Some of the ranchers in the study reported that their guardian dogs had little or no effect on the predation of their livestock and others reported that the guardian dogs made the situation worse and were actually killing livestock. In contrast, other ranchers reported that the guardian dogs had made a huge difference and were very happy with the dogs’ work. This begs the question: How can a livestock producer achieve the goal of having a good working pack of livestock guardian dogs?

First, we need to establish what a good livestock guardian dog is. A good livestock guardian dog does not hurt or kill any livestock, it actively moves around and through the herd patrolling for potential problems, it does not leave the herd alone, is cost-effective or in other words, earns its keep, improves grazing efficiency of the livestock and prevents predators from killing livestock.

So how does a producer get a guardian dog that helps and not one that makes the situation worse? Research indicates that ¾ of livestock guardian dogs will become effective or “good livestock guardian dogs.” These dogs need to be treated and trained differently than a pet or a herding dog. The dog must establish a bond similar to one that you might have with your pet dog only with the sheep or the livestock that it will be expected to guard. Otherwise, it will likely not guard them in the way that the producer would like.

These dogs should come from parents that have been successful in becoming a good livestock guardian and be a breed of dog with a history of guarding livestock successfully. They need to be left with the livestock from a young age in a situation where they will be most likely to establish a strong bond, such as a small pen, and then gradually moved into larger and larger areas.

Perhaps the best way to achieve the goal of having an established pack of good livestock guardian dogs is having an older dog that is already a good livestock guardian dog.

Make sure that a pack of dogs is made up of several different age groups. An established pack will reduce the effort/time that one will need to put into training a good dog; the younger dogs will learn a lot from the older ones. That does not mean a producer will not still need to put in some time with each dog. People who are not careful that each dog has a good working relationship with them could find themselves in a situation where they will not be able to catch the dog when it comes time to adjust or put a new collar on it, or when they need to take the dog to the vet for medical care.

A good guardian dog can be an invaluable asset on any ranching operation, but each is an investment and will likely not be of much value if the dog is simply purchased and time isn’t invested to train it properly.