posted 8 years ago
As for dog having to be introduced to the herd as a puppy so they think the herd is their pack:
I've found this unnecessary. I do believe that if you do this, there is no training needed as they do grow up naturally protecting their pack. BUT I had a Rottweiler that was born into a pack of 9 adult dogs. I then moved to Haiti with this dog and became a farm manager there. The goat herd was in most need of protection. I wasn't going to try to train my dog to protect the animals because I had heard they needed to be raised with the animals they were to protect. But I did want her to help me herd and not want to kill the goats. Well, through AI we had 33 kids all at once. My dog, fixed and never had puppies, assumed each kid as her own pup. She cleaned them, followed them around, protected them. It took some time, but she eventually started protecting the adults as well. She also helped nurture the orphans we had. There were many stages to this development but that's the gist.