Checking in on Big Boy

Big Boy is our Great Pyrenees livestock guard dog that we adopted.  We haven't talked about him lately. He is certainly a beautiful dog.  He hasn't worked out exactly as planned.  When we originally put him out in the pasture, he chased the chickens and barked incessantly at the cows.  One day I caught him with a chicken in his mouth and I knew we couldn't trust him for a while.  I think he was only playing, but he was playing too rough.

We got a heavy duty 30 foot cable with a tie down and put him in the pasture.  He has a good area to run around without getting in trouble.  We also let him run free, but the old boy runs around and gets in trouble. He ran down the road to a neighbor's house and must have done something because we heard the neighbor shooting a shotgun in the air to scare him off.  Big boy also digs holes.  Lots of holes.  Holes that hold water.

Big boy likes digging big holes

The people that we got him from gave him to us because he liked to roam around.  In fact he had gotten shot on one of his maneuvers.  You'd think he would learn his lesson, right?  It is such a dilemma.  I don't like him tied down all the time, even if it is at the end of a 30 foot cable, but when we let him go, he runs across busy roads where he could get hit by a car or goes to a neighbor's house and has the potential of getting shot. We're considering putting in an invisible electric fence with a collar, but some of those are pretty pricey.

He's a cool dog and we like him.  Sometimes he just chills out on the back patio.

What's up?

A profile shot of the hipster dog.

He is a good guard dog and barks his head off when strangers come down the driveway.  Benjamin has trained him to sit and shake hands.  If we could just teach him to not roam, not put chickens in his mouth, and not dig enormous holes, we'd be in business.