What is the Maremma purpose?
And why are people surprised when an independently-minded, strong-willed dog demonstrates its own preferences?
Many people say that LGDs are suitable only to be trained to, and kept with, livestock in a paddock on acreage. They can get downright abusive if you try to suggest any sort of alternative options, and many Maremma owners trail a constant niggling guilt or shame if their dogs are doing something differently.
As if we needed any more reasons, in this day and age, to feel stressed and worried!
I believe this focus on space alone is doing this amazing, self-willed breed a major disservice, by asking the wrong question.
Instead of asking “how much space do you have?”, we should first ask “what job will your dog have?”.
The answer to that can then form the basis of am informed response to the new Maremma owner.
Because I’ve come to believe, after 10 years of reading thousands of stories and experiences, that an LGD without living things to bond to and guard is going to have the greatest problems; and, further, that LGDs frequently have their own opinions and preferences on what it is they guard.
And it’s not letting those dogs express their instincts and preferences is what leads to unhappy dogs in rescue; not (in the first instance) the amount of space they have.
Let me illustrate with two of my own experiences.
Story 1 - unfulfilled dogs with plenty of space
I was driving to Bungendore one morning. I had Romeo in the ute with me, as I thought he needed a little socialisation. Despite being dog-averse, he’s fine when settled and I can easily control him, and getting off-property occasionally keeps him from getting set in his ways. (The same could safely be said to apply to me, to be fair … ).
Barely 5mins into the trip, I saw a pair of Maremmas about to go on the road. They were behind unmaintained dog wire and one was already halfway through it.
I stopped and went toward them. Carefully. Loose Maremmas can always be stressed and potentially dangerous if they’re not socialised - as many paddock Maremmas aren’t. But these guys were insanely friendly, and belted straight over for cuddles and attention.
One (the one lying down in the photos) had a small box on a collar around his neck - the controls for an underground fencing unit. Clearly they were meant to be contained, but just as clearly were not.
Before I had time to get too concerned about what I should do, a local turned up. “Ah yeah, they belong just up the hill there. They do get out a lot”.
He helped me load the dogs into the tray of the ute (I wasn’t going to risk a fight by trying to put them in with Romeo!), by simply picking them up and popping them in. Again, clearly social dogs with a bond to humans. I don’t know if any of my dogs would have willingly got in a car with a total stranger, except maybe Luciano.
Then the neighbour hopped in the tray to keep them safe and directed me to their home, up quite a long driveway.
No-one was home. There was a third dog waiting anxiously. The view was amazing. I didn’t see any other animals.
I also couldn’t see a pen to put them in, so all we could do was unload them in the middle of all that silence. I wrote a note explaining who I was and where I’d found them, and slipped it under the door. It’s all I could do.
They seemed very happy and pleased and uninclined to follow the ute out, so I can only assume they’re ok and haven’t had reason to try and wander for company again.
Story 2 - paddock dog adapts happily to a small space
Video of Luciano blissing out on the car ride.
In early 2024, 20-month Luciano zigged when he should have zagged, playing with Romeo. He got himself a gash on the thigh, big enough to require staples and constant monitoring.
Two days before we were due to go away for the weekend.
We hurriedly rearranged our accommodation and checked with friends that we could bring Luciano with us. They were used to Wolfhounds, thank goodness.
And then we bundled Luc into the car and away we went.
Of our four, Luciano is the most human-oriented. He clearly prefers human company to that of poultry or even the other three Maremmas, although he adores the older Romeo as his mentor.
He is excellent with the chooks and ducks (not so much the guineafowl, but that’s not unusual with Maremmas). He can stay safely in the paddock with the girls, whose retirement plan he’s meant to be.
But he doesn’t want to. He’d rather patrol the house yard against foxes and wombats, popping into the house every so often to check on his working or sleeping humans.
He has been well-socialised from birth, and is the most extraverted, social and flexible Maremma I’ve ever met. He adores meeting new people and other dogs. And he does not like being separated from his humans - ie me and th’Bloke.
He is, clearly, bonded to us, more than the livestock. (Do we feel worried about this? A separate discussion. But sort of).
I have taken him into the dog-friend office a few times, as a pup. He had to stay on the leash and clearly didn’t enjoy being restrained that way, but was beautifully well-behaved nonetheless. Sleeping, mostly, and being taken for walks every hour. But never alone. I even took him the loo with me, because I was concerned how he might react if I weren’t there for even 10mins.
So we knew he would broadly be ok.
The weather saved us. It rained. And rained. It was cold. Luc hated the feel of the raindrops on his injury site and couldn’t come inside fast enough. He gleefully roamed the big house, played adorably with the children, and lay quietly and contentedly at our feet. He behaved perfectly when taken outside for loo breaks during the evening and overnight, slept peaceably in between, and didn’t have any tantrums.
The only time we had any problems were when we tried to leave him alone (eg in the car for 10 mins) or if we separated (he likes his flock together).
He was calm and content in a new and constrained situation, because he had a job - guarding us from the new things.
And we were calm and happy because the injury remained stapled and clean.
What do these stories demonstrate?
That the purpose of a Maremma isn’t as simple as “it must always be in a paddock with stock and it’s downright cruel to consider using it for any other purpose”. They illustrate that a Maremma needs work, a job that gives it company, even more than it needs space. It needs a human leader to train it, and something to guard.
It is a working dog, with instincts developed over thousands of years, and those instincts tell it to find something to bond to, and then to protect what it’s bonded to, and to look to its humans as the leaders of the pack it thus creates.
If all Maremmas can only be happy - be “correct” - in paddocks with stock, why are these stories so common in the LGD social media?
The stories from LGD rescue groups, telling of the rural Maremmas surrendered because “They got out and chase the neighbour’s stock” or “They bark all day according to the distant neighbours” or “They killed the chooks”.
Those self-same LGD rescue groups who, after having assessed those dogs, clearly state “pet home ONLY” for some dogs, and “paddock with livestock ONLY” for others.
The stories and photos of clearly happy, content, companion Maremmas on both acreage and suburban blocks. “They follow me around the property and then roam the house yard” and “They stay with me when I go to the local cafe and enjoy meeting new dogs on the beach” and even “they travel with us in the caravan”.
For that matter, my own experience of my own well-trained, well-bonded Maremma girls frequently (trying to) escape their well-inhabited paddock, just to wander around and have a look at the world.
Of course, training forms a significant part of these stories; and that’s part of the point.
Maremmas can potentially bond to just about anything they’re trained to; and they do often have their own preferences on this. Humans, chooks, rabbits, penguins, cats, sheep, cattle, possums, kangaroos, bilbies.
I mean, that was the entire basis of the movie “Oddball”; a dog trained to poultry who discovered a random preference to guard penguins, a movies based on the true story that continues to this day as the Middle Island Penguin Project.
The species isn’t relevant; the training, and understanding the dog’s individual preferences and abilities, is. Even the penguin-protector Maremmas have different roles - some are guardians, some are educators. And all the dogs will have been chosen based on their clearly-demonstrated preferences while growing up.
So, if we’re going to reduce all this to a binary, which setup of these two do I think has the happiest, most contented Maremmas?
A Maremma on acreage where the humans are off-property most of the daylight hours and there are no other animals.
A Maremma on a suburban block with 4 chooks and least one human home most of the time.
In my opinion, the second dog has a more satisfactory life. With caveats.
Caveat: barking
LGDs protect in the first instance by by barking at threats.
They don’t rush silently at them, because that would mean abandoning their flock.
No canine instinctively uses silent violence as the first response to a threat situation. It’s too risky as there’s always a chance the dog might lose.
When hunting prey yes, of course. But threats aren’t prey, and LGDs have largely had the prey drive bred out of them - otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to live with livestock at all.
So they use noise to try and frighten threats away. They make themselves look bigger, and they bark. They raise unholy howling hell. Only if noise doesn’t work will they use violence - to defend in the first instance, to attack only if absolutely necessary.
And that’s where the space consideration comes in. The further away the human neighbours are, the less they’ll complain about the noise of a Maremma doing its job.
Your Maremma can be blissfully happy in suburbia. Your neighbours only a few metres away might, however, have another opinion, formed over the 2 years or so it takes for a Maremma pup to grow to reduced-barking maturity.
Yes, barking can be mitigated.
But if you want a dog in your backyard that goes on long walks, sleeps at night, and rarely barks, then you honestly don’t want a Maremma. Try a Golden Retriever.
Caveat: preferences
Here’s some common situations that I’ve either seen myself, or have seen discussed:
A human-oriented Maremma placed in a paddock to stay with the animal flock, spending a not-insignificant amount of time trying to get to its humans. This risks the dog neglecting the flock.
A dog snoozing inside the house taking just that bit longer to respond to a threat situation. (To be fair, it’s possible such dogs defer first response to their humans, and are more alert when the humans aren’t home)
A livestock-oriented Maremma in a suburban setup driving everyone insane with “over-reactive” guardian behaviour. Not just barking, but over-protectiveness with strangers and visitors, an intolerance of other animals, or a dislike of leaving the property at all.
These situations can be frustrating. The dog isn’t doing what you want, or expected, or have put in hours, days, months, years, into training it to do.
Particularly in the working situation, a dog that doesn’t want to spend time with its flock is nearly regarded as a “failed Maremma”.
Why?
Every working dog breed has preferences. For example, any herding dog trainer will watch their dogs carefully to determine whether it’s a yard, paddock, or utility dog, with training and placement adjusted accordingly.
And occasionally, you get dogs that simply don’t want to work the way they’re expected at all. Retrievers that don’t want to be Guide Dogs. German Shepherds that aren’t quite cut out for police work. Herding dogs that can’t push stock.
And LGDs that don’t want to stay in paddocks.
We accept “failed” guide and police and sniffer dogs as excellent, well-trained companions to the right people. Why should LGDs be any different?
Does it make them a failed or spoiled or wrong LGD?
Hardly. They’re still Maremmas. They still need a job to do.
It simply means we need to understand and accept that some dogs - not all - will have firm preferences on the work they do, and how they do it, that don’t match our human expectations.
Then we need to understand how that dog prefers to work, and integrate it into our human systems. Sometimes, we need to be the flexible ones.
In our own small farm setup, for example, we’re in the process of setting up a dog flap system so the ageing paddock dogs can come up to the house during thunderstorms, and the younger house yard dogs can access the paddock to chase off threats, while still patrolling the house yard.
Which, we’ve incidentally discovered, is the reason the productive garden beds remain unscathed by rats and possums. The girls ignore them, but the boys feel they’re threats and spend whole nights chasing them off …. and my lettuces remain intact. (At least, until the bowerbirds find them … apparently parrots, cockatoos, and bowerbirds are not threats. But we can’t have everything).
The fact that I can have anywhere between 2 and 4 Maremmas lying around or inside the house during the day or night doesn’t make them any less working dogs. It doesn’t make them “soft”, or “spoiled”, or “unable to guard effectively”.
The fact some other Maremmas guard their human flock where it lives - inside a house - doesn’t make them less of a Maremma, either.
It makes all those dogs perfectly normal, well-trained, well-socialised working Maremmas, who have their own preferences and skillsets, who don’t get stressed in really new situations - and who have a job to do.
Conclusion
And here’s what it boils down to, I think.
Maremmas are bred by humans to bond with, live with, and guard flocks of living creatures.
Maremmas regard specific humans either as The Boss (another sort of dog), and/or flock members.
Humans regard Maremmas as trusted second-in-commands in charge of flock protection.
Maremmas are therefore entirely serving their purpose if they’re hanging with their livestock flock inside a paddock (because that’s where livestock lives), or with their human flock inside a house (because that’s where humans live), or any mix of situations or setups that take the dogs’ own skillset and preferences into consideration.
What’s critical is that the Maremma has a job to do, and is not left entirely alone (ie without the company of any other living thing) for long periods of time on a regular basis.
BUT!!!
Maremmas will guard their flock by barking, and this cannot be stopped, although it can be mitigated by helping the Maremma understand what’s a threat in the local area and what’s not.
This barking habit is what can make them unsuitable for life on small blocks with close neighbours. Not the perceived lack of a job, but the means by which they perform that job.
It’s thus my considered opinion that a Maremma on property with no flocks and largely absent humans is a much less satisfied dog than one on a smaller block with largely present humans and potentially other animals to guard.
Got some thoughts on this? Comment below!