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Steve Niedrauer wrote: > > > By using the term "cooped up", I meant no offense. Absolutely none taken. If we had a yard fence, it would defeat one > purpose of having the dogs, which is guarding livestock. How do you deal with > this issue with your Pyrenees? The Pyrs are confined in the same pastures as the livestock and live in the barn. They follow the stock out to graze and generally patrol the perimeter of the fields (smallest is 25 acres) several times a day. They rid the fields of anything that doesn't "belong" there including racoons, groundhogs,etc. and of course this includes larger predators like fox and coyotes. And definitely stray dogs - but as I said in my earlier post we don't really have that problem any more. These two dogs are treated much like our BCs and one is even shown in the AKC breed ring. In answer to your question regarding herding dogs being less likely to kill stock - IMHO the most efficient livestock killing machine I can think of would be a well trained Border Collie working stock on it's own. The instinct that makes them such efficient herding dogs is the very same instinct that makes them efficient stalkers and hunters of prey. The only difference between the two activities is training and the presence of a handler to direct the dog and thus control the stalking moves before they reach their final (instinctive) conclusion of actually killing the prey. For what it's worth. Melissa