[lgslgs]

If your dog can get into the livestock area, so can any stray - so you have two problems. One is your fencing is inadequate for predators, the other is that your rottie isn't properly trained.

No farm dog here is ever allowed in livestock areas unsupervised until they are several years old and have proven themselves reliable. Young dog training is a combination of plain old obedience work, with the occasional VERY RARE usage of an electronic training collar (nick setting only, lowest intensity to get a reaction) when the dog is intentionally ignoring a recall command at a long distance because goat chasing is just too much fun.

Our livestock training is mainly to teach a very good, reliable recall. When the dog goes within a certain distance from a goat, or shows body language of too much interest, we do a recall and then sit, down and other good fun obedience work.

Recall training is done outside of livestock sight until it's very good, and then we work near livestock areas just as if it was any other normal kind of training distraction. We also do leashed walks when livestock are out in the big (15 acre) livestock area and the dog gets a lot of instruction of how they are supposed to behave around animals.

Until the dog is flawless around livestock they are not left outside without full supervison. And "flawless" means no woofing through fences or getting excited when livestock comes running down the hill. If the dog is still responding like livestock are playmates or prey, they need a alot more training before they can be trusted.

The dogs also need training in knowing that livestock are not to be picked up and carried around. A good livestock dog may have a desire to carry it's charges around, but may hurt or kill them in the process. I like to have all of our livestock dogs trained to the point where they really know that they really respect around their livestock animals, and don't crowd them, herd them, lick their udders, or otherwise invade their space unless there is a true predator threat and they need to gather the herd. If our goats raise their ears to any of our dogs, we expect the dog to be respectful and interact calmly with the goat from a distance.


There's a lot of training involved in getting a farm dog to the point where they are reliable with livestock, and until they are it doesn't take evil intent for someone to get hurt. Even innocent play can cause a broken leg or aborted kid. Mouthing a young animal could injure or kill it. Licking udders to annoy a goat into running so you can play chase could cause someone to slip and fall. And lack of supervision will have your dog demonstrating for you every spot where your current fencing is open to perdators.


Lynda