A Prancing Pony Farm MSCA Registered Maremma Sheepdog Puppy:

  • Is registered with the Maremma Sheepdog Club of America and comes with the appropriate registration paperwork. Puppies are sold with Limited Registration in most cases.
  • Has an excellent pedigree with ancestors who are proven working LGD's. Pedigree will be provided by the MSCA.
  • Has correct conformation with no major defects that would prevent him or her from doing their job as a LGD.
  • Has a well balanced temperament; affectionate and friendly with their family, friends and people they are properly introduced to but wary of uninvited strangers that might seek to steal or harm their charges. 
  • Has a sound body with no defects that would interfere with them doing their job as a LGD. Puppies will only be produced out of parents with good hip scores, proper conformation and no major faults or defects.
  • Comes with a Puppy Contract and 2 year Health Guarantee.
  • Will be properly socialized with a variety of livestock, including goats and poultry, from the first weeks of life until leaving the farm, so that they will mature into trustworthy, safe LGD's.
  • Will be properly socialized with humans, including small children and teenagers, so that they will be safe to handle and comfortable around a variety of people and situations.
  • Will be trained with positive reinforcement methods, including Puppy Culture, Karen Pryor Academy Clicker Training, Early Neurological Stimulation, BAB Puppy Curriculum and other positive training methods. They will be exposed to a wide variety of experiences in order to help them mature into well balanced, happy and well adjusted LGD's.
  • Is on an age appropriate vaccination and parasite control program, is under the care of a licensed veterinarian and fed a high quality dog food along with fresh raw goats milk from our dairy herd.
  • Is microchipped and enrolled for life in the Petlink Pet Recovery System, with Prancing Pony Farm as the guardian on the account, in case the owner can't be reached if the puppy gets lost.
  • Comes with Lifetime Support from Prancing Pony Farm. We are always available to answer questions and give advice and support however we can. We also provide many useful links and articles on our website, which we are continually adding to. And we have a private Facebook Group for families who have bought goats and puppies from us, where owners can connect with other Prancing Pony Farm Maremma owners and ask questions, share photos and stories and more.
  • Comes with a LIFETIME Satisfaction Guarantee. We do not give refunds or buy back dogs but if at any time in your dog's life you can no longer keep it, for any reason, we will gladly take it back and find it a new home. If a suitable home can't be found we will keep the dog ourselves. We never want one of our dogs to end up in a rescue situation and there is no reason why they ever should because we stand behind our dogs.

How to Reserve a Maremma Sheepdog Puppy or Adult from Us

​ If you are interested in obtaining one of our puppies the first step is to fill out our Puppy Questionnaire below. We will be happy to answer a few quick questions by text or email but we do require you to fill out the questionnaire before we have a phone conversation. This is so that we will already know a little bit about you, your livestock and your needs for a LGD before speaking to you on the phone. We put a lot of time, money and effort into raising healthy, high quality working Maremma Sheepdogs and do our best to match them with the right families. This Puppy Questionnaire is designed to help us match the perfect puppy for you, to ensure our pups get great homes and to give us all the necessary contact info we will need for registration paperwork and record keeping later. It’s in your best interest to fill out the form right away so we can better serve you.

​No Maremma reservation can be made until this form has been filled out. No form, no pups, no exceptions!
Once we receive your submitted questionnaire we will contact you to discuss your needs and goals for a Maremma puppy and see if one of our puppies would be a good fit for you. The more information you can give us about yourself, your family, your livestock and your goals for a puppy the better. We want our puppies and their families to be happy so communication is key in making a good match. ☺️ Our initial contact will be by email but if you would like to have a phone conversation we can set that up after we receive your questionnaire, or you can text or email us with your questions.

​Please check your spam if you don’t hear back from us in a day or two. We always reply in a timely manner but sometimes the form doesn’t come through or our replies go to spam.

If we have any currently available puppies they can be reserved with a $500 non-refundable Puppy Reservation Fee, payable by PayPal.
​
All Reservation Fees are non-refundable.

Information on current and upcoming litters can be found on our Available Puppies and Adults page.

If we do not currently have any available puppies then you can be put on our you on our Master Reservation List for a puppy from a future litter by paying a $500 non-refundable Master Reservation List fee. Information can be found here. Or if you do not wish to pay the fee then you can check the website occasionally for updated information on litters.
The puppies are weaned onto Diamond Naturals All Life Stages (puppy) food and raw goat milk from our dairy goats and are on an age appropriate parasite prevention and vaccination program. Puppies come with registration paperwork, a clicker so you can continue the positive training methods we started with them, and are microchipped with lifetime enrollment in the ​
​Petlink Pet Recovery System.

About Our Puppy Training Program

Our pups are born and raised in our dairy goat barn and heavily socialized with all types of livestock, including goats, horses, ponies, donkeys, a variety of poultry, other dogs & barn cats. The puppies also receive extensive interaction with humans, including children. We utilize the Puppy Culture early socialization program, Karen Pryor Academy Clicker Training and other positive reinforcement training methods for happy, loving, well balanced LGD's. ​(We encourage our future puppy owners to enroll in one or both of these awesome programs to prepare for their new puppies.) We keep puppies until 3-4 months old to ensure they get a strong training and livestock socialization foundation and that they are fully prepared to go to their new homes.

Age of Placement

In general we prefer to place our puppies at approximately 12-16 weeks old. We chose this age for several reasons. First because the first 3-4 months of a puppy’s life are the most critical for learning. We provide a rich learning experience for our puppies. They learn how to be LGD’s from both of their parents and other mentor dogs. They learn proper dog socialization skills, such as bite inhibition, from these adult dogs and from their siblings. They learn an incredible amount from being immersed with livestock from an early age. They learn to respect livestock, to see them as their natural companions and they learn their “language” of the livestock they live with, much the way young children learn a foreign language - by being immersed in that language from birth. Our puppies also learn from our Puppy Curriculum, which is a combination of Puppy Culture, Karen Pryor Clicker Training, BAB Puppy Curriculum and other positive reinforcement training methods. Keeping our puppies longer allows them to get a very strong training foundation which will benefit them, their new owners and the stock they will go on to guard.

We also prefer to keep the puppies longer for health and safety reasons. Puppies are at great risk to diseases like canine parvovirus and distemper, so we prefer to keep them until their have had most, if not all, of their puppy vaccines and have built strong immune systems to keep them healthy and disease free. And because our puppies are going to Livestock Guardian Dog homes where they may be exposed to livestock that aren’t used to dogs yet, as well as large predators, it’s in their best interest to let them get a bit bigger before they leave here. There’s a huge difference between sending a 15 lb puppy out into the world and sending a 40-50 lb pup out to do their job!

Also because a large percentage of our puppy buyers are first time LGD owners we feel it’s in the best interests of the puppies, the new owners, and the livestock they are to protect for us to keep them long enough to get a really solid training foundation. An 8-10 week old Maremma puppy is certainly adorable and sweet, but it’s not ready to take on the job of protecting livestock against large predators, nor to be left completely unattended with stock that’s not used to LGD’s, nor is the average new owner ready to take on the task of properly socializing such a young puppy with livestock while also keeping it safe. After much trial and error and experimenting with letting puppies go at various ages we’ve decided that a little older is better overall. ​

Puppies can be kept longer for additional training if desired. This must be arranged in advance and is subject to availability based on space constraints and the time of year.

We have a Facebook group called Prancing Pony Farm Families for anyone who has bought a goat or Maremma puppy from us or who has paid a deposit and is waiting to pick up their babies. Look us up on Facebook and meet some of our other families!
To see our puppies featured on the Gold Shaw Farm YouTube channel go here.
Due to the biosecurity risks to our puppies and our dairy goats we do not allow visitors into the areas where our animals live. For more information about our Farm Visitor policy see the link below:
*We are in the process of building a new Puppy Rearing Facility. Once it's finished we hope to have a better system for allowing customers who have placed a reservation on a specific litter to visit the puppies while still keeping our puppies safe and healthy. Keep an eye on our website for updates.
We accept cash, credit or debit for deposits and final payments through either our PayPal Business account or Square. We do not accept checks.
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