Introducing Jax

We added another memeber to the family on Sunday. We actually were not planning to add a dog, as we've decided no more dogs indoors. However, our neighborhood--suburban though it may be--has an issue with coyotes, and we've toyed a bit with getting a dog to protect our livestock. Hubby mentioned this casually on Saturday night when we were visiting with friends who recently purchased a puppy. Although I detest cleaning up doggie messes in my house, I am fond of the creatures, and the kids have wanted a puppy for as long as I can remember. I took advantage of this opportunity and began searching my go-to online classifieds. We soon discovered that your typical guard dogs are not necesarily great at protecting livestock. Enter: Livestock Guardian Dogs.

I didn't even know these creatures existed before Sunday. There are actually certain dogs bred specifically for guarding goats and sheep. These are not sheep dogs, which look to the shepherd for guidance, but intelligent guardians who act on their own instinct to protect their flock. Since herding is not particularly widespread in our big city, we didn't find much in the way of Lifestock Guardian Dogs (LGDs) for sale. We also were specifically searching for a puppy we could train around our own animals from the beginning, which further narrowed our search. Fortunatley, we found one litter of Anatolian Shepherd puppies for sale. We researched the breed, and were pleased with what we read. Anatolians are calm, loyal dogs well-suited for extreme heat (they originated in Turkey). Currently Anatolians are used by farmers in Africa as a non-lethal deterrant to keep cheetahs from taking livestock.

We chose the breeder's favorite puppy, whose dad was a "gentle giant" at 185 pounds. Jax bonded with us quickly, and definitely identifies us as his flock. Now we are working to integrate him with his real flock. We're not quite comfortable leaving him in the pasture 24/7, as the pigs are a bit rough with him. Soon, though, he'll be big enough to avoid getting trampled, and he'll graduate from our porch to the pasture. Right now he's missing us at night, and tries to convince us to let him in. (Hopefully he'll soon notice that he only succeeds when he's quiet.) He has already figured out (just shy of 7 weeks old!) how to open our back door, which I am now keeping locked.

Do you have any dog-training experience, particularly with Livestock Guardian Dogs? Any advice for us? We are previous dog-training failures, so anything helpful is appreciated!