K Anderson

Thank you for all the input. I was leaning toward getting a male and female, but then the breeder informed me that the last male was spoke for. So we went down to the farm to pick out a single female.

Turns out the person that was going to take the last male backed out. We spent over 3 hours on the farm talking to the breeders, playing with the dogs, and observing their parents. And against just about everyone's advice, I decided to bring home the male and female siblings.

It's only been a week, but I'm glad we took the two together. We'll see how badly this backfires on me.

Say hello to Luke and Leia, our Akbash guardian dogs, ready to bring balance back to the farm.

K Anderson wrote:We're torn between getting a male/female pair from the same litter now or just one and then add another LGD later, possibly an adult.

To clarify, I'm thinking of getting one male and one female from the same litter, not two males or two females.

John F Dean wrote:Hi K

Welcome to Permies.

Thanks. I've been a lurker for a while. I love the crazy ideas people come up with, just like me.

A mountain lion attack last week has accelerated our LGD search. The mountain lion took one of our pigs and has already taken multiple goats from down the road.

We can immediately pick up 10 week old pups from working Akbash / Great Pyrenees lineage from the goat dairy 1 mile down the road (talk about lucky).

Since we are dealing with mountain lions, black bears and coyote packs everyone says that we will need to run at least two dogs eventually. While we have pigs, chickens, and rabbits on 75 acres, the dogs' primary charges will be our 4 kids (5-11 years old).

We're torn between getting a male/female pair from the same litter now or just one and then add another LGD later, possibly an adult.

FYI, our 11 year olds are boy-girl twins and are the only kids that I would willingly charge with a long term project because they just get each other. The twin connection is weird, even for non-identical twins. They know what the other is thinking. When they want to work together, they complement each other really well. While they do know how to push each others buttons, they ultimately know when to stop so things don't get out of hand. I'm interested to see how that boy-girl twin relationship would play out with working dogs, but my wife is more reserved about getting two LGD puppies at the same time.

Our prior dogs have both been Labrador house-dogs. Our first one did nothing when I was charged by a bear fishing and I'm pretty sure our current lab doesn't even know there is a mountain lion and black bear on the property currently.

Opinions?