I keep hashing this out and it's so hard to make it work in my head. :-/ What do I dooo!?!
The plan is to breed Kaia on her next season. I deeply regret not keeping one from last time. Especially after seeing how they matured. So her breeder and I are going to co-breed a second, very last litter. If things work out like we hope, the dog I keep will become my foundation because I learned from the last litter that I love this breed enough to stick with them long term and want to begin building my own line.
By then Strider will be 6. Kaia will be 4 when they're born. Depending on what is born I plan to keep pick bitch and my sister is getting pick dog since I won't make Strider live with another male.
That will put me at 3 zois. It should work out totally fine and awesome. Kaia isn't a bitchy bitch and gets along great with other girls. She goes and visits one of her daughters regularly and all.
Here's the dilemma part. I really need a guard/watch dog. There's a scary/dangerous domestic situation that will likely remain a problem my entire life. A few of you know the details. The person in question has shown they can navigate a yard and avoid cameras/motion sensors (not going to go in detail in public, but it was unnerving).
I'm not expecting the dog to run interference on intruders, but won't complain if it decides to. What I do want is a dog that will raise Cain if someone enters our yard and especially if they come into the house. I am still going to utilize surveillance type tools on my private property and take other safety measures.
One of the huge problems is this has me not sleeping at night. I just lay there thinking, what if he comes through the window right.... NOW. Or how about... NOW..... NOW... All. Night. Long. (thanks brain!) I feel like, if I had a dog that was hyper aware to things like that I could trust it enough to be able to relax in my own home, which will be huge when I can finally afford my own place because it will be just me and the kids at home at that point. The most likely scenario is to only have the 3 zois, work from home, and get the 4th when I move out.
So... how to make 4 dogs work? Does this even sound like a good idea? Luckily the three are borzois which are really easy. It seems like a lot of the guardian/watchdog breeds are higher maintenance though, but maybe that's just skewed perception.
I would really love a single dog in the household of sight hounds that is more into tracking and the tracking side of hunting, which it seems like a lot of the guarding/watching types are more suited for.
The plan is to breed Kaia on her next season. I deeply regret not keeping one from last time. Especially after seeing how they matured. So her breeder and I are going to co-breed a second, very last litter. If things work out like we hope, the dog I keep will become my foundation because I learned from the last litter that I love this breed enough to stick with them long term and want to begin building my own line.
By then Strider will be 6. Kaia will be 4 when they're born. Depending on what is born I plan to keep pick bitch and my sister is getting pick dog since I won't make Strider live with another male.
That will put me at 3 zois. It should work out totally fine and awesome. Kaia isn't a bitchy bitch and gets along great with other girls. She goes and visits one of her daughters regularly and all.
Here's the dilemma part. I really need a guard/watch dog. There's a scary/dangerous domestic situation that will likely remain a problem my entire life. A few of you know the details. The person in question has shown they can navigate a yard and avoid cameras/motion sensors (not going to go in detail in public, but it was unnerving).
I'm not expecting the dog to run interference on intruders, but won't complain if it decides to. What I do want is a dog that will raise Cain if someone enters our yard and especially if they come into the house. I am still going to utilize surveillance type tools on my private property and take other safety measures.
One of the huge problems is this has me not sleeping at night. I just lay there thinking, what if he comes through the window right.... NOW. Or how about... NOW..... NOW... All. Night. Long. (thanks brain!) I feel like, if I had a dog that was hyper aware to things like that I could trust it enough to be able to relax in my own home, which will be huge when I can finally afford my own place because it will be just me and the kids at home at that point. The most likely scenario is to only have the 3 zois, work from home, and get the 4th when I move out.
So... how to make 4 dogs work? Does this even sound like a good idea? Luckily the three are borzois which are really easy. It seems like a lot of the guardian/watchdog breeds are higher maintenance though, but maybe that's just skewed perception.
I would really love a single dog in the household of sight hounds that is more into tracking and the tracking side of hunting, which it seems like a lot of the guarding/watching types are more suited for.