The dog did not protect my sheep

[Kararas]

  One day I went to check the traps to the west of the house. I think it took an hour or two. When I returned home I saw a lynx eating the remains of my poor sheep! The sheep was in the paddock, there was a tied dog nearby and just looked
I also observed the tracks of a badger near the cellar, near which a dog is also tied. So does it make sense to use dogs for protection?

[Privateer]

  One day I went to check the traps to the west of the house. I think it took an hour or two. When I returned home I saw a lynx eating the remains of my poor sheep! The sheep was in the paddock, there was a tied dog nearby and just looked
I also observed the tracks of a badger near the cellar, near which a dog is also tied. So does it make sense to use dogs for protection?

 A 'Ram' will try to protect a sheep, a bull will try to protect a cow, a dog will try to protect you. As far as I know.
I like to think that having a dog loose in my animal pen offers protection to my larders. Sadly, If you're not there they don't care.

[Plotinus]

If the dog was tied, could it reach the lynx? If everything is lined up like this:


lynx - sheep - dog - tree

 then the dog can't reach the lynx

[Matti-patti]

I did once see that a lynx had become injured when it had killed a pig at my settlement. It might have been the dog that was tied to the same tree or perhaps the pig that it killed. The wild boars draw aggro, so perhaps the tame ones attack hostiles too?.

In general I find the animals way too aggressive against player's domestic ones, both in and out of settlement. It's the moment when the game's "I just want to live" animal AI switches over to the movie monster one. The player character, dogs and companions should be effective by their mere presence at dissuading predator attacks, particularly when around in numbers. I don't mind if I see occasional starving pack of wolves especially in the winter, but it's shouldn't be every encounter.

[JP_Finn]

Lynxes are coded aggressive. Reported, not a bug, same issue with inactive pooch.

[Ara D.]

I just tell my self that the critters are not as scared of people due low population density and lack exposure to our apex predator status, what with our strong jaws, sharp finger nails, tough hairy hides, keen sense of smell and hearing, and superior speed and strength what's not to fear.   

[GrimmSpector]

I just tell my self that the critters are not as scared of people due low population density and lack exposure to our apex predator status, what with our strong jaws, sharp finger nails, tough hairy hides, keen sense of smell and hearing, and superior speed and strength what's not to fear.   

So interesting, but if you read old Greco-Roman area/era reports of wild animals, which their military took excellent stock of, it depended wildly on season, number of people and normal animals in the area on how particularly aggressive wild animals were and how much they cared about the presence of humans as a deterrent. Modern reports show a significant decrease in generally willingness of animals to engage humans and their livestock, though this is also not universally true, and varies significantly in some areas of the world.

Though the lynxes in this game seem to be straight up suicidal insanity.

[Matti-patti]

A decent article on livestock guardian dogs I found and wanted to share: https://yellowstonevalleywoman.com/the-rise-of-livestock-guardian-dogs/

Maybe some born and bred herd dogs from the northern tribes some day?

[PALU]

Even if the Vikings may have been visiting the Americas by the end of the UrW timeline, they probably didn't bring any dogs back. Also, you don't have to go to the new world to find usage of dogs specifically bred for herding/livestock guarding, but the UrW dog seems to be a hunting dog breed, not a herding one.

[Matti-patti]

Even if the Vikings may have been visiting the Americas by the end of the UrW timeline, they probably didn't bring any dogs back. Also, you don't have to go to the new world to find usage of dogs specifically bred for herding/livestock guarding, but the UrW dog seems to be a hunting dog breed, not a herding one.

All the livestock guard dogs used in US are of European or West Asian origin, though from the Mediterranean world (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, the Balkans and Turkey) rather than the north. It does seem to be a very specific working dog type that is difficult to maintain a breed for. Apparently some breeds that were at some point specialized for it simply don't work at it anymore. Indeed it seems like the study mentioned in that article has since concluded and the breeds it found to be best were all not very established recent imports to US. And the breeds that are used to corral the herds and the breeds that are used to kick wolves around are distinct ones and don't work at each others' jobs.

How applicable it is to iron age Sami I don't know. All the dog breeds today associated with Sami seem to be rather modestly sized animals, more like 30 kg than the 50 kg + (wolf sized) that the Mediterranean guard dog breeds are. And Sami don't ultimately have very long history as herdsmen, so it might be reasonable to assume they never developed as sophisticated breeds as the Mediterraneans who had millennia to go at this stuff. But they are the only peoples in URW that I'd expect to have breeds of that sort.

[Ara D.]

My two cents are if we went for most likely real world behavior I feel that UrW dogs would deter predators from a this is my territory get off mentality vrs this is my pack/herd and I'll fight against all odds. Also in my experience hunters and herders like to chase things that run and sheep definitely run from strange dogs so in the real world it would be very risky to leave a dog trained to chase and bark in a pen full of animals that tend to flee. Or long story short, a dog wandering the home stead like a village dog would deter predators but in the pen unsupervised would result in dead sheep stuck on the fence