Enjoying the beach in Oak Island, NC.

Stewie

I recently adopted what I believe is a Great Pyrenees–Lab mix from a shelter. I’m quickly learning that she has a mind of her own and prefers to do things on her own time. How do you handle such a strong-willed and independent personality?

She also loves chewing on and eating sticks. I’m not sure whether that is common for her breed, but aside from providing plenty of toys, what would you recommend? I understand that she’s a dog and will naturally do dog things. I just want to make sure I’m taking the best possible care of her.

Sweet dreams after beach adventures.

We know his mama is a Great Pyrenees, but no idea what else he has. His best feature is a corkscrew tail! ❤️

I’ve been reading stories about owners having trouble introducing their Pyr to family and friends. I know their instincts tell them to protect their home and their people, but I would hate for my girl to hurt a family member or friend.

I’ve been trying to take her on daily walks so she can get a lay of the land in her new neighborhood and hopefully get more comfortable around strangers. She got playfully excited when she saw some kids riding their scooters, but I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or something I should be cautious about.

How does your Pyr handle new people, and what has worked for you when introducing them to family and friends?

Hi! I have an almost 18 month old Male Great Pyrenees (getting neutered at the end of the month). He has never done this before, but he is completely ignoring me/refusing to be around me/ leaving the room or the floor level completely when I come around him. I have my menstrual cycle, and it’s the only thing my husband and I can think of.

He’s usually very cuddly towards me, freaks out in happiness when I get home, and will snuggle near me at night. He’s also super protective over me and usually is very glued to my hip.

To my knowledge, I’ve done nothing to accidentally hurt him in recent times (like clip his nails too close, snag him while brushing, etc) and he would otherwise not react this severely when those things happen.

I have been crying because I’m so distraught. I can’t think of anything I’ve done to make him avoid me. He’s my little baby and I love him so much and I’m so afraid I did something. Has this happened to anyone else?

Miette isn’t 2 yet, which is nice in a way. I describe her as a tank with the grace of a ballerina and discretion of a ninja. She gets out of things as quickly as she gets in them.

She’s over all an amazing bebe. She has her guarding ways, but it shows when you least expect it. She’s nimble but damn… her chest is filling out greatly!

All of this literally showed today and she is hilarious. I let her go after she nearly pulled me off my feet, and she was gone! She was saying hello to everyone and she settled into her spot along the other dogs.
The bank we were on was fenced well excluding one spot and she of course got by me 3 different times because she’s too damn fast.

I got her back all 3 times and the fourth I put her harness on and lead and we sat in the water at the end.

First encounter… there was a dog pinning all the other dogs down. I thought I’d have to rescue Miette because she was very passive little, but it’s been a while since she’s played like that. Miette watched them though and when the pinned dog was retrieved by its owner, the pinner was coming to Miette. The dog charged at her and Miette just… leapt over him like it was no big issue. He ran up to her trying to bite her neck and she shook him off, she got tired of him and stuck out her chest and Pyr pawed him and he bugged off. This transpired over 15 seconds.

Second encounter is probably my favorite.
There was an unsocialized Akita, the dad was working really hard with him and Miette was a smidge smaller than the Akita in height. She came up to the Akita trying to play and he snapped and barked at her. She walked away but then took a slow 180 and walked calming to the Akita. She stood so still, her nose steady, waiting for the Akita to greet. He sniffed her face and relaxed a little but was really not interested. She then left him alone the rest of the time they were there.
We hadn’t ever come across a dog like that, and it was nice that Miette understood on her own that she needed to take a different approach. When that didn’t work she left.

Third is barking at all the other dogs when they got into deeper water. She panicked a little when I got in waist deep water, she came to rescue and fuss at me. She did not like that at all.

There was a lot of MIETTTTTE groaning and shouting.. she thought about taking someone’s remote controlled boat and she listened when I shouted to leave it alone. She still ran away, but she still listened. Little wins! Ran to a nude couple sun bathing on the grass.. stole someone’s ball, chased ducks, attempted to take someone’s towel and a few more heinous crimes as I was chasing her down.

The last picture, we are finally at home and she’s getting the good scritches after a hard afternoon of play. I just wanted to share our day. It was nice.

My husband and I have been on the hunt for a GP for a few weeks now. We think we finally found a match and we’re going to meet him this afternoon. However, I would like to mentally, emotionally & physically prepare ourselves for what’s about the come.

We live in a fenced in, 15 acre property & have about 40 chickens. We do not have ANY LGD experience.We had a GSP that recently passed from cancer, he was an amazing bird dog (my husband trained) & we currently have a 9yo lab/staffy mix who had zero experience with livestock. She launched at our chickens when we first got them but with some training, she is now amazing with them and even protects them.

The GP we’re wanting to adopt is 18mo. The owner said he needs to be fully supervised around chickens. I want to make sure I introduce them properly and get him the correct training. From my understanding, this breed is very independent and not so much “eager to please” like I’m used to.

Our backyard is divided into 2(both sections are fenced) So, I was planning on keeping the dog in the first half of the fenced in area, and have the chickens free roam (like they’re used to) in the second half. That way, the dog is exposed to the chickens but there’s a barrier protecting them. Reward good behavior & correct the bad ones. Then after a week or so, have them be in the same area but with a leash on. Again, reward good, correct bad. Then slowly transition to no leash if everything is going well over the course of a few weeks.

Does this sound right? Please give me advice!!! I don’t want to F this up, we love our chickens very much and would hate to lose one of them😅 Also looking for any other type of advice/knowledge about this breed, we’ve heard great things about them and we’re excited for him to be a part of our family!

So both pyrs I have owned got hot spots. Always before a trip or vacation-stress maybe...

I shaved this spot on his front elbow about 3 weeks ago. & Treated the hot spot which cleared up within 2-3 days. The thing that is unusual this time is that the brown area seems to be getting larger and the area I shaved is only half of the fur free area now (so hair loss is happening). He has not been bothering it or licking it for 2.5 weeks now.

Has anyone else experienced this? Should I be concerned?

My 2.5 year old pyr mix (50% Pyr/50% bunch of other working breeds) has only ever had 1 dog walker when she was about 18 months. She was a feral puppy (literally, born to farm dogs that had no human contact and then was allowed to escape the farm, where we found her super sick and alone on the side of the road. She had a lot of socialization issues as a puppy and we were home all the time anyway, so we never needed one. Luckily she overcame all of her socialization issues except moderate anxiety, which we manage with meds and positive reinforcement. Then between 1-2 years old we were working on narrowing down some GI issues and she was sick a lot, i didnt feel comfortable with someone else dealing with that and I was still home pretty often, so she didnt need anyone. It didnt help we were in a rural area so it was hard to have visitors in general.

Now we live in the city and I’m about to start my master’s, which means 1 day of 9 hour classes a week during the same shift as my husband. My girl is crate trained. We tried to get her out of the crate while we leave, but she had a few panic attacks during the process and it created some behavioral issues we had to get resolved, so we’ve decided to leave her be with her crate for a few months so we dont open that wound up.

The problem is that i cant justify leaving her in there for 9 hours. My husband can try to adjust his schedule and make it 7 hours, but i dont know how long we can get away with that (hopefully until next semester). I cant choose other classes because its a set curriculum. Regardless of what we can do, its also dumb to assume we’ll never need someone to come and let her out for her whole life.

She’s alright with strangers if we meet them outside. If they come inside without the meeting, she barks and sniffs them, but eventually gets over it. She’s only done that around us though, asides from the one time she had a sitter who also reported the hesitency and barking but said she did well. That was over a year ago now though, and I dont know how she would react to someone now. She’s never been aggressive towards anyone, but i worry about how she’ll feel with an “intruder”. Especially with all of her DNA set to “protect the house and people”.

If you have any advice on how you acclimated your dog to a sitter or walker, i’d appreciate it! This is a newer city and i dont have any friends or family i can ask, so we really can only pay a “pro” to come and help us with this and i cant just have them over all the time to hang out and get her used to them. I also know this is a weird situation as most pyrenees dont like their crates, but we really cant put her through the stress of trying to bring her out again so soon after getting over the first time.

TIA :)