Garden Dog Landrace?

Professor Porcupine
Fri, 28 Mar 2025 22:07:13 +0000
Off Topic

I’m looking for excellent Garden Dog, that can scare away (Or kill) all the Animals (Deer, Rabbits, Squirrels, Groundhogs, Moles, Mice, ect) bothering my Garden but at the same time not trample over my garden beds & make a mess digging holes ever where, respecting boundaries & one that doesn’t attack me or my family. I plan to feed my garden dog the best food from my garden & chicken eggs (And the other pest animals my dog feels like hunting).
As a bonus, perhaps a guard dog to protect the home & garden not just from animals but Human invaders too.

I’m hoping a good garden dog can supplement a fence or perhaps make having a fence/border wall not required to keep deer/groundhogs out.

I’ve got a lot of questions to help me find/create the right dog for the job.

1. Does an excellent Garden Dog Breed exist already or do we have to Breed one ourselves?
Or is the dog breed irrelevant if it can be trained to respect garden boundaries?

2. Which is better, Dog Breed vs Dog Landrace? Does it make sense to landrace a dog? I’ve heard some dog breed are so inbred that they constantly get disease, live horrible lives full of pain & sometimes an eyeball can pop out, yikes!

3. Is there enough diversity in dogs breeds to avoid this horrible inbred genetic fate or will I have to source diversity genetics from Wolves (Or other species)? Ideally I’m hoping there’s enough diversity in dogs to not resort to introgression with wolves, I like the friendly trait dogs have.

4. What do you do about the “offtypes”? If your crossing so many dog breeds, what happens if the Aggressive trait shows up that could threaten you or your children? Nurture vs Nature or is it both? How much can you out train bad aggressive dog genetics?
Cesar millian said dogs feel your energy & confidence, he makes it look easy with enough patience & teaching respect. But wolves or Wolfdogs are a very different story no? Same things don’t apply right? Eventually the reality of genetics rear their ugly heads into the situation no?

I mean any “off type” I could donate to friends or animal shelters but if the dog is dangerous, it feels irresponsible to pass that on to another person but at the same time it feels wrong to put down a dog, even if aggressive especially if it the behavior of the “Off type” can be fixed with training. But then I’ve heard horror stories of Rottwilers attack their own family with no earlier sings of aggression. You can’t out train a bad breed no?

Any ideas, thoughts or suggestions? Any gardener/farmer who also has a dog, how do you make it work?

Also do Garden Cats exist? Or is a Garden Dog Still better at hunting mice? I’ve heard some Australian Dog Breeds were specifically bred to hunt mice but do they do a better job than Cats? Are there any cats specifically bred to hunt mice?

13 posts - 5 participants