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Depending on the breed "people-motivation" may not be much of a problem, especially if your hobby farm is on the same land as your home. In practice if the dog is around people a lot it needs to be socialized for their safety. Also, certain breeds (ahem, pyrenees) are just people-motivated regardless and need to be explicitly trained to stay with the animals. (We selected pyrenees for this reason as they are far safer around family than most other LGD breeds.)

The pressure-release paradigm is helpful here: use her people-motivation to your advantage. Give her attention and affection around the goats, praise her when she runs off "threats" (even birds), but if she abandons them and (for example) comes to beg for food from your picnic be very gruff and cold until she returns to her charges.

One final note is that a dog on watch may look "lazy" or like they are not watching their charges, but dogs rely on different senses (less sight and more smell and sound) and have their own alert threshholds. Our LGDs sit on our patio all day unless something comes around, and then they are immediately alert to it and running it off. At night, they are patrolling.




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