Training Your New Puppy to Livestock

Training Your New Maremma Puppy to Livestock

One of the most common questions we get asked by new puppy owners, whether they are buying a puppy from us or have bought one elsewhere and are seeking advice is "How do I train my puppy to livestock?", followed by "When can my new puppy be left unsupervised with my livestock?" This is a a very complex issue and the answer to the first question depends on many factors such as the temperament, age and developmental stage of the individual puppy, how the puppy was socialized with stock for the first few weeks or months of it's life, the type of livestock it will be guarding, the temperaments of the livestock and whether that stock is used to LGD's or not. The answer to the second question is "As soon as it's possible to do so safely for both the stock and the puppy."

I have heard people say to never leave a LGD unsupervised with stock until they are two years old. I very strongly disagree with this advice! That is a good way to end up with a companion Maremma, instead of a LGD. A LGD puppy needs to bond with the livestock it will guard as soon as possible, however it needs to be done safely. And while it's true that in general LGD's aren't fully mature until they are around 2 years old (some even later) in reality a well bred, well started LGD should be safe with at least SOME livestock at a much younger age, and in fact they should not be deprived of this important bonding time with the stock. The trick is matching the right stock to your puppy and setting the puppy and the stock up for success. And that all begins with what happened before you ever brought your puppy home. Then it's your job as a puppy owner to build on that foundation.

If you bought your puppy from us, or from a breeder who socializes their puppies intensively with stock like we do then a large part of the work has already been done for you. To learn more about how we socialize our puppies with livestock please see this page below:

How We Raise and Train Our Maremma Puppies

If you bought your puppy from someone who skips this important early socialization with livestock them I'm sorry to say that you have a lot of work cut out for you and your dog may never reach it's full potential. It requires nature AND nurture to produce a superior LGD. And it requires a lot of work and a carefully planned and set up environment to raise puppies this way and to do so safely for the puppies and the stock. Sadly there are some "breeders" out there who are either too lazy or too ignorant to do things right. These people seem to be in breeding solely for money or prestige. They aren't really farmers or livestock producers and if their puppies get any exposure to stock at all it's an occasional visit to the chicken coop or to see the family horse or few token sheep on their "farm". Calling this kind of experience "learning livestock" is like watching a cooking show and calling it "learning to be a chef".

There is a "critical window" of learning for puppies that lasts during roughly the first 16 weeks. This is a scientific fact. To learn more about these critical learning periods see these links:

Puppy Developmental Stages
Socialization and the Race Against Nature
The Sensitive Period and Socialization in Puppies and Kittens
Neuroscience and Brain Mechanisms of Critical Periods in Puppy Development
Critical Periods in Puppies Revisited
Puppy Socialization Starts with the Breeder
The Puppy Culture DVD and early socialization in Puppies

Now admittedly most of these articles are about companion dogs but the same science applies to Livestock Guardian Dogs. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the early socialization period in puppies is even MORE critical for LGD puppies than companion dogs. We are taking a predator species, dogs, and asking them to bond with, live peacefully with, protect and perhaps even lay down their life to protect other species - prey species. It requires more than "good genetics" for a LGD puppy to live up to their full potential. It requires nature AND nurture to produce the best LGD's, and anyone who tells you something different is ignoring science. And any LGD "breeder" that skips this vital early learning time is doing a great disservice to their puppies, their customers and the livestock they will once day protect.

If puppies spend their first 12-16 weeks living with livestock they are learning the "language" of the stock, much like a child immersed in a bilingual home naturally picks up both languages and does so more easily than any adult ever could. If puppies instead spend this time inside a house, on a patio or hanging out by the swimming pool then they are learning to be companion dogs. When you take that puppy that was raised in a companion setting and drop him into a barn full of goats, sheep or chickens he will feel like Dorothy did when she landed in Oz. And then he will spend a lot of time trying to get back home to Kansas! These puppies invariably have a harder time bonding with stock and some never really do. And it's not the dog's fault or the owner's fault. That is 100% on the breeder.

What's more, puppies raised with little to no livestock interaction haven't learned proper behavior with stock during the most effective learning period of their lives. It's a simple fact that a peck on the nose or a head butt from a goat or sheep is a lot more impressive to a 15 lb puppy than a 50 lb one. The RIGHT livestock, introduced early in the puppy's life by the breeder, can teach the puppy manners while also giving the puppy positive interactions with stock so that the puppy learns to respect the stock but also see these animals as his friends. There's a specific type of "puppy trainer" stock that works best, steady, calm and gentle but not prone to either getting overexcited or overly aggressive when the puppy tries to engage in rough play, as all puppies will eventually. A good breeder understands the vital role the livestock has in training their puppies and employs specific trustworthy stock just for this purpose. But if the puppy gets NO (or little) exposure to stock during this critical window, or exposure to the wrong kind of stock (either aggressive stock or flighty stock) then you are much more likely to have problems with puppies and adolescent dogs that engage in rough play and even aggressive behavior with stock.

We have acquired Maremmas from breeders who socialize their puppies with stock the way we do and we have (unknowingly) acquired dogs from people who are basically breeding companion dogs but calling them LGD's. (One breeder uses the term "estate guardians". Maremmas are NOT estate guardians and shouldn't be trained as such!) Every dog that was trained the way we do it has been natural and easy with our stock and trustworthy at a young age. The dogs who were not trained the way we do it have been really, really difficult and have taken much longer to mature. And the longer these dogs were with these breeders, missing the important livestock exposure, the harder our job has been.

But enough about what NOT to do. If you bought your puppy from us (or a breeder who has a similar puppy training program) your puppy will have been immersed with livestock pretty much from birth. Our puppies are born in our Puppy Parlor, which is both a whelping room and a dairy goat milking parlor. This building sits in one of our goat pastures where we house does and kids. There are goats in and out of there regularly, as well as other animals nearby. Once the puppies start walking they have an outdoor kennel attached to the building where they can spend time seeing, hearing and smelling the goats without getting stepped on. Usually by about 5 weeks or so they are outside full time with the goats, learning to be LGD's from their moms, our other mentor dogs and from the goats themselves. Eventually they make visits to other parts of the farm where they meet horses, chickens, ducks, geese, barn cats and lots of other dogs.

The problem is that people bring home a new puppy and think they will put it in with their entire herd or flock. That is usually the worst thing you can do. This stage isn't about the puppies guarding the sheep at this stage. This is about training the puppies. You may have to separate out a few really calm, steady sheep that are perfect puppy trainers and leave any reactive ones elsewhere. Then once the puppies have calmed down and learned to not be so bouncy they can go with the entire flock. It takes patience, but it will pay off in the end.

When you say they haven’t bonded with the sheep what do you mean? Because they can still bond with the animals but occasionally behave inappropriately. Bonding (or lack of) and playing inappropriately are two separate issues.

And bonding doesn’t look the same with all dogs. Some prefer to be snuggled up with the animals while others like to watch from afar. So long as the livestock is safe that is what matters!

As far as rough play that is also typical of puppies of this age. It sounds like your sheep are handling it perfectly. If the puppies are hurting the sheep (causing bite wounds) that would be a definite concern. If the sheep are running around, yelling and getting all spooked that would also be a concern because they are rewarding the puppies’ inappropriate behavior. But if by saying the sheep are “unimpressed” you mean they ignore the puppies attempts to play then that’s exactly what you want! An animal that ignores these silly puppy games is a boring target. The puppies will soon give up and move on to something else to occupy their time. The sheep are training the puppies for you!