posted 7 years ago
Great Pyrenees-Akbash (white Anatolian) are a great cross for LGD purposes. Guard Asses (i.e. a Mexican Jack) are also something I've seen be successful with goats in NW Oregon with cougars around. If you have wolves or at least coyotes as I am guessing (or hoping, as your area would be have to be hammered to not have them), I would strongly recommend multiple dogs to avoid one being ambushed and surrounded.
I think it is also in your best interest to build the old farmers' rule of thirds into any budget and production plan: a third for me (sale/longterm storage), a third for friends/family, and a third for the neighbours (which include your local wildlife). The ways this can be broken down are infinite and are largely already built into the 5 zone model with the wildlife getting a lot of zone 4 and all of zone 5. If i do glean better than a third, I ought to be thankful and know I am getting a lot more than my fair share as only one of many occupants of that part of the Earth. Also, I might question whether i really put in 1/3 of the energy it took to make your harvest? In reality i likely didn't (thanks sun!), and this will make me feel more fortunate for whatever I get. It will likely swing the other way another year and I benefit from remembering my good fortune when i had it and hopefully have saved and reinvested the surplus back into the land and its increased productivity and diversity, making future failures less catastrophic. Its usually when we expect more than our fair share that we can be disappointed or set ourselves up to lose the farm due to naturally occurring events like livestock losses on land taken from predators just trying to survive.
I lost my first full grown duck this last month, most likely to a raccoon when part of my fence in the bird run was too low to keep my pyr in and so he wasn't allowed back there freely at night and they lacked his protection. It has been 3yrs now though with only one loss in 30 birds, and I attribute this as much to their freedom to fly into trees all around them or even out of the yard as much as to my LGD. Good luck, just remember no human system is perfect and nature will get its share one way or another.
This is all just my opinion based on a flawed memory