We have been here on this little farm for almost a year. Its been a huge but wonderful change from the big city life. We have since added a bull calf, a bunny, 2 full grown chickens, 3 ducklings and 27 chicks to our farm. One more thing we are thinkng of adding this summer is a dog. This dog will live outside. We have adequate shelter (barn and a shed) and 3 acres of yard, plus the pasture for this creature to run on. 5 kids that will run it until it can't anymore lol.
Tell me about your outside dogs. Do they roam to and fro when you are outside? How much of their time is spent tied up? My thnking is of course when we leave to lock or tie the dog up, but the rest of the time train her to stay here and let her run with us outside and roam when we are in the house(which isn't often even in winter)
Lets see pictures and stories of how a farm dog works at your house!! Oh, and the dog we are thinking of getting is a Lab mix
Tell me about your outside dogs. Do they roam to and fro when you are outside? How much of their time is spent tied up? My thnking is of course when we leave to lock or tie the dog up, but the rest of the time train her to stay here and let her run with us outside and roam when we are in the house(which isn't often even in winter)
Lets see pictures and stories of how a farm dog works at your house!! Oh, and the dog we are thinking of getting is a Lab mix
Glad to hear things are going well! 
We are still out in the boonies, we also have a little flock- 20 chicks, 3 turkeys, and 2 ducks. We've got cats of course too, and 2 bunnies. In February we got our first dog. He's a puppy, he was 2.5 months old when we brought him home- purebred golden retriever and he's now 5 months old and getting pretty big! My original plan was going to likely be a lab, but we found Sawyer and it just felt right, kwim? My #1 priority was it had to be a reliable kid friendly dog- which labs and retrievers are. He spent the cold weeks inside except for going for walks or being out when we were out, cause we didn't want to leave him out as a small puppy. Now he spends most days outside and sleeps inside at night. He does not need to be tied up, he is content to roam around the property and never runs away or strays from our yard yet. I've been acquainting him with our chicks from day one and so far he is not aggressive with them or even playful, just curious, he will let them walk on him even when I am right there. The other day my ds left the duck cage open and Sawyer was in there with them, I heard them peeping and putting up a big ruckus- to my horror I saw the dog in there but realized he wasn't doing anything to them, just sniffing curiously at them with his ears up. So, so far so good on that front. He's also incredibly obedient and amazing with the kids, we never did any puppy classes, just a little training at home with rewards. He is very friendly to people we know, he seems to read me, if someone I don't know shows up he barks until I tell him to be quiet or he sees me "make friends" with them. He's just a great dog, we intend to move his bed out to the barn for nights and close him in there to keep him safe, but I'm not sure when. He's really independent for a retriever in that he doesn't need to be around us all the time, he is very happy and loves to sit out in the sun and sniff around while still getting lots of tlc and play from the kids (who are homeschooled, as you know), when he wants to come in or get attention he just yips at the front door and give a little scratch-which I think is so cute! We plan to get him fixed when he is more fully grown, around a year. If we were to buy a 2nd dog I'd probably look into either a yellow or black lab or a great pyrenese as we have coyote problems in the area and I worry about Sawyer. Take care!
He's a good dog, but he's big and, kinda stupid. He tends to knock ds1 over when he's out cause' hes just not paying attention, yk? Doesn't listen all that well or seem to care most of the time. But he's great with the goats, and thats his primary job, so he's fine 
