Failed attempt to keep LGD on property with an anti-fence triangle collar device -- any other ideas?

Hi Everyone!
I have a maremma (Italian livestock guard dog) that won't stay on my property. I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to keep him at home.

I have read through various livestock guard dog publications and found a PVC triangle to 'fence' train dogs, so I've made my own using a harness and a PVC triangle. Please see the attached pictures. At first the triangle would just lean so he could easily go under a fence, so I put a harness on him to avoid the lean, but this has only minorly deterred him.

PLEASE any suggestions??!! My neighbors are kind in calling me about him being on their property, but they are getting tired of it.

THANK YOU THANK YOU

some dogs don't like Citronella oil. you could plant a Lemon Balm called Citronella balm. check 1st to see how your dog reacts to the smell. try with a citronella grass stalk. works for me but I have smaller dogs.

Thanks Jacques for the reply!

I live on 22 acres with 4 rows of barbed wire at the boundary. I can plant the citronella balm at the places he tends to leave at, but I don't think it's feasible to do the entire perimeter.

Please keep the suggestions coming!

Thanks

Can you run a hot wire along the fence? I was having some trouble with mine starting to wander too, but she got shocked a couple times and now she won't even test any fencing, just in case it's electric.

Gracie Philipsen wrote:Can you run a hot wire along the fence?
I was having some trouble with mine starting to wander too,
but she got shocked a couple times and now she won't even test any fencing, just in case it's electric.

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this is quite true.... i had a neighbors dog stuck in the cow pasture wanting out of it... but it wouldn't go near the electric fence gate.
So i thought...i'll solve this, and unhooked the gate and now it's open by 15 feet wide. The dog still refuses to take the chance even
though i walked thru it twice saying, "it's ok, no gate". The dog ran up and jumped over the invisible gate even though none was there.
that taught me allot about dog behavior.

what you need is a shock color and a hand held buzzer so as you walk the dog around your property line and it gets to close to the border
be ready to zap it accordingly until it learns where not to walk.

I have 5 dogs. 4 understand hot wire. While one does not care. He knows it will hurt, but not for long, so he does not react to shock. I'm too looking for way out from this situation...

waht sort of fence do you have? nothing like a good fence built to do the job and some obedience training to never let the dog jump.

also i thought these dogs did best when they were bought as a working dog ie.,. some sort of flock herd to live with and look after, lady up our way has one for her sheep/goats not sure which and the dog lives with her animals very happily. they have a rural block couple of acres and the fence will be the rural norm just dog wire.

the poor animal looks miserable in tha yoke assembly.

generally any working dog breed not suited to simple pet status.

wonderful looking dog hey?

4 stran barbed wire won't necessarily stop a dog put up a 5 foot dogwire fence, not going to be cheap aroung 22 acres but fence off a smaller compound are say an acre or 2 around the house. we trianed 5 of our dogs not to go beyond teh 4 strand barbed wire fence but they where bitsas no pedigrees, working dogs need to be worked, you will need some toys and ablle so teh dog can play go fetch, that may go a long way to fixing the problem.

len

Thanks for the replies -

I'm not ignorant about the breed - yes, he IS a working dog and he has work to do. I have an abundance of animals he is to protect! He's been bonded to chickens since he was a pup. But this breed is known to roam too. He wanders off because it's more fun to chase the cows next door than to do his work.

The yoke may look unpleasant, but it's better than getting shot, like our last dog who wandered. Also better than being tied up 24/7.

We do have a house yard fence, so maybe I'll close those gates and see how we go.

He knows which fences he's not supposed to go under because I've taken him the entire perimeter and whenever he's strayed I've scolded him and he's understood. He is consciously choosing to do this despite his training (maremmas are free thinkers)

yep ok! don't remember saying anyone was ignorant, but whatever hey?

try reverse psycholgy (not a mind control advocate but) instead of scolding speak words of poitive kinds, like our current dog has too much bull terrier(pig dog they know but one thing attack and kill) in her cross breed with a kelpie, but we are winning instead of rousing when she savagely barks at this dog and not that dog passing we tell her she is a good girl and got to be and ahve a sleep she loves her beds. we are now winning where we were going horse yelling before. she is learning not to chase kangaroos or wallabies and hares, she has learned to not even bark at them so her interest has been lowered. when we have our own place 1.25 acres with 5" dog wire fence and dog safe farm gate she will relearn her boundries, she will have ownership. she has also learnt to walk beside us not ahead of us or behind us, does not pull on the leach when it is on, comes to heal, only reward is a kind soft word, don't believe in treat rewards

teh first years of their age is the best training time

balls in your court

lovely dog still looks sad.

len

Tie a rope around a decently heavy tire. Like a truck tire. Tie that around his collar.

This might work, it's not cruel, it just limits his mobility. I have experience with 7 livestock guardian dogs. 1 of them, who was pure Great Pyrenees would NOT stay on the property. I have 7 strands of HOT high-tensile fence. The damn dog still got out, and unfortunately got hit by a car and died. After this I tied the tire on another dog who was wandering. After a while I took it off and he sort of stopped. It's all about the breed of the dog. Some will just expand their range, every day, farther and farther out.

Hope this helps.

Chris

Hi Jill,
It seems like you have pretty much tried everything!
We also have a Maremma, she is 5 years old and we are really lucky as she stays on our property. We have sheep and chickens which she protects.
Our property is smaller than yours,its only 5 hectares around the house and we have the whole thing fenced in, and we have never had problem with her going off the property.
They are a great working breed.

Good luck with your dog, let us know how it goes!

Nicola.

If the dog respects your wishes the trick is to catch him at it when he is being sneaky and not just scold but convince him you are angry to the point of violence. That moment of thinking you are about to kill him when your treatment is usualy mild leaves a dog with a lasting memory that that particular behavior is not cool

If the dog stays primarily in a yard area and if that yard is under an acre in size, a good wireless fencing system by Petsafe is a great investment. I've used it for the past 6 years on my GP/lab mix and my Lab/AS mix dogs without a single escape. I also have a perimeter fence but a blind dog could find his way out of it easily...the Petsafe has paid for itself over and over and kept my dogs on my acre, with my livestock(sheep, cows, chickens) and right where I need them.

Before I got that system, the GP mix gal would r-u-n-n-o-f-t whenever she took a notion. The $800+ vet bill to repair her leg after she got hit by a car was enough to convince me that I needed something to keep her home.

If that's too costly, I agree with the tire and chain option. Couldn't be more miserable than that PVC triangle.

Jill Bell wrote: But this breed is known to roam too. He wanders off because it's more fun to chase the cows next door than to do his work.

I have a maremma who is hard to contain but with 125 acres I let him wander & hope for the best. Maremmas do tend to have a 1 mile radius unlike Pyrs who can claim a 15 mile radius!

I watched this dog climb a 6' fence so you may need to keep that triangle on him. Maremmas are shape shifters!

My dog does escort deer off the property but I would not say he "runs deer." He does go to the neighbor with cows but mainly when they drag dead calves out towards the woods. It's like a buffet for my dogs! The farmer used to get upset until one of my LGDs came right over to her and sat down. The dog never once looked at the cows, ducks or other critters so she was finally convinced that the big white dogs who occasionally visit wont actually harm her livestock (dead animals are fair game). If your dog is actually chasing the cows that is a harder sell.

I would post some questions to Maremma specific sites. The yahoo group I followed formed a new Forum and they are very helpful.

andrew son wrote:I mostly away from home and I want a dog for the home protection.

Do you mean mostly away during the day or mostly like a 2nd home? Livestock guard dogs really are better off with livestock to guard. They are not attack dogs. They act defensively and do what they can to convince predators that there are easier meals elsewhere. One of the methods used to convey this info is to bark at night. They also bark during the day as suspicious things like low flying planes or strangers.

If someone comes on to my property that they've never seen, they will stand between me and the stranger. They would try to protect me but not attack on demand.

Why not just place a hot wire on the inside of your fences at digging under and climbing over heights and be done with it. It will also help this dog in protecting the livestock. It's a cheap and effective solution to what is sure to be an ongoing problem.

I think electric works better in theory than in practice. It wouldn't work for me due to snow. If a Maremma wants out he will find it.

Unfortunately, I agree.

So far so good though. Actually we did loose our first Maremma under suspicious circumstances. My husband got into a disagreement with someone who wanted to hunt on our property and the next day our problem dog vanished. We never saw either one again and that's a good thing.

That's what I call a win/win!

The problem with the livestock guardian dogs in the US today is that casual breeders are breeding and selling them as livestock guardian animals but are not selectively breeding for their original traits of bonding with and staying with the herd~more and more they are being utilized in suburban areas and losing their natural traits~be it through irresponsible breeding or through being underutilized on small acreage. In other countries there are no fences and herds are pretty much on open range..and so are the dogs. They wouldn't last long there if they wandered off and didn't do their jobs and only the specialized and capable animals would be kept for use.

I have 4 dogs, two of them are Anatolian Shepard LGDs. Two of them leave the property sometimes to go on long adventures, and two I can trust to stay here no matter what.

I've bread dogs for about 8 years now, and I've learned that there is a lot of variety that comes out of any given litter. Just because a dog is a certain breed doesn't mean that it will have certain behaviors.

I've noticed my dogs that run away are way more independent thinkers. They do not enjoy learning tricks and making their owner happy by studying me to see what I want. They are genuinely interested in protecting the property, but they want to do so in their own way. If that means exploring the nearby mountains then that's what they do. I really do not think this is something you can change with training, because they will start to sneak away when they think you are not looking. I do think training will minimize the frequency of off-property venturing.

So my advice is to get two more puppies. It's always better to raise two dogs at once. Don't let the older dog train the puppies to leave the property. Hopefully with the new puppies, at least one will remain on the property with no leash. Then the other dogs that like to run away can still be utilized in enclosed areas or on an overhead run. I've noticed that my dogs that do run away are also the ones who engage with predators in battle. They each have strengths and weaknesses that you can use to your advantage.

Not exactly on topic but I bought a trackimo tracker for my dog in October and finally worked up the nerve to try it Friday night after purchasing a waterproof bag for it.

Then the dog didn't go anywhere so I let both big white dogs out at the same time. Eventually they took off, running on contour north and then down the mountain towards the nearby farm.

It was neat to track him but it didn't stop me from worrying. I got an email that he crossed the virtual fence.

In the morning, both dogs were back but the tracker was down at the farm, so clearly that is the weak link. I tried to find it on Saturday but it has snowed and the snow drifted. Battery down to 65%. Went back down today and I DID find it, 12 feet from where my phone said it was. Battery was at 35%

So I guess I give it a B+. They say it's accurate to within 50' so 12' was pretty good. To get an A+ it would need a longer battery life, a louder beep, a better way to attach to a dog, and it would need to be waterproof. My jerry-rigged waterproofing worked, but it was kludgy.

I know this is an ancient thread but I am posting just to comment on the dog's facial expression in the first photo.

Multiple posters have called the dog's expression "miserable" but I have another view.  My LGD very rarely adopts that facial expression, and especially the narrowed eyes (pupils squinting in) and ears slightly back.  It is not misery; it is anger, or as close to it as these gentle beasts get with people.  I call it the "I'm imagining what it would be like to nip you smartly" look.  When our big boy was going through puberty just pre-neutering and we were trying to keep him from visiting a neighbor dog in heat, we saw it fairly routinely, and he did nip (not forcefully or in a way that connected) once or twice in moments of extreme frustration.  (This encouraged us to accelerate our schedule for his planned neutering.)  If LGDs had not had aggressiveness so thoroughly bred out of them (for the obvious reason that they would be intolerable in human society at their size if they had any remaining potential to eat people) this would be a "death stare."

IMO the dog is communicating as strongly as he knows how that the people in the room are lucky to be alive or at least un-nipped, and that continuance of said alive and un-nipped status is a matter of conscious decision on his part -- a decision that he is continuously reevaluating.  

But seriously, on the handful of occasions since his neutering when I have  seen this look on my dog's face -- usually directed at another dog -- I treated it as an emergency, or at least as an urgent animal management priority to resolve whatever was causing the reaction.

If I see my boxer bitch twitch her right side of lip, even slightly, I know we , or more accurately our visitor/post lady/vet/cat is in real trouble.

She also barks if a fly farts.