Whether or not to Introduce 7 mo. old akbash-pyrenees cross???

[Nanno]

I'd probably risk it. Seven months seems a fairly ideal age to me. They're young enough to learn but big enough not to get beat up by the more aggressive goats in your herd. I think your older dog should be able to keep a new pup in line. If your current dog is male, I'd get a female pup, and if your current dog is female, I'd get a male pup. I hear matching sexes tend to have more problems accepting each other (especially two females). With a new dog of any age, you'll have to keep a close watch on it at first to make sure it isn't aggressive or playful with the goats. You'll want to put it with your older goats before introducing it to kids. In fact, we did not allow our dog, Pluto, to go near any new baby goats unsupervised until he was two years old. He's just so powerful that even a playful romp could injure a young baby goat, so we didn't trust him with the very little ones until he outgrew his puppy stage. We never did much leash training or obedience training with our dogs. I kind of just expect them to behave. We've taught them to come, and they know the meaning of "NO!" Your new dog should cower and roll on its back when scolded. I had to get after both of my dogs quite a bit for barking and sometimes even chasing when the horses started romping. I sometimes had to correct the dogs for chasing and romping when the goats started to play as well, but not as often. They both seemed to know that it was not ok to play with the goats, but I had to reinforce this with Pluto when he was a pup. So yeah, if the price is right I'd risk it. I've found both of my livestock guardian dogs easy to work with.