We currently have 3 guard dogs. The oldest is by far our most trustworthy - we use him with the lambing ewes with good success. The two younger dogs each pose different problems.
One dog is just a big goof ball. He plays with the sheep, roughly at times. We had him neutered last year, thinking that this might calm him down. It has to some extent, but we still can't trust him with lambing ewes. He'll chew on the ewe's ears while she's lambing, and he'll play rough with the lambs.
The youngest dog will ultimately be a very good dog, I think. He's just now 2. His biggest problem is that he is overly protective of the lambs - he protects them even from their mothers. He has injured several ewes doing this.
Since we're not with the sheep 24 hours a day, it's difficult to catch and correct these behaviors. Does anyone have a suggestion for dealing with this?
The last issue we're having with the dogs is their desire to patrol more widely than the paddocks they're in. We use electric nets to contain the sheep. The dogs have learned to jump the fence so that that they can extend their patrolling. We've started using short (5') lengths of chain that they must drag. This seems to curtail the jumping - either through the extra weight or because they've been shocked while dragging the chain over the electric fence. If we do this for a week or two, they'll stay in for awhile, but we seem to need to repeat it.
Any suggestions or ideas others have would be most helpful!
Dan Macon
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