They're great dogs if you have enough room. They can be very playful, they'll adopt your children and guard them with their life. Their favorite snack food is coyotes, so they tend to be somewhat nocturnal, at least when they live out in the country. They are big, heavy-boned dogs, so they do tend to have the joint problems associated with that. Ranchers around here love them anyway, I had one guy tell me he went from losing a dozen calves a year to coyotes to losing none once his Pyrenee went to work. He said the first time the dog showed up in the morning covered with blood, it scared him to death. He started washing and looking for wounds, and found the dog didn't have a scratch on him. No more coyote problems.
My girlfriend had one for a few years. She has three lots, so her back yard is pretty big, but Toby would still get out and patrol about half the town. She finally gave him to a friend out in the country. The first night there, he started barking like crazy and wouldn't stop. The woman got fed up and sent her husband out to "reason" with Toby. Husband went out, saw what was going on, went back in for his shotgun, went back out and killed the skunk Toby had corralled in the yard, at a safe distance so he wouldn't get sprayed. Toby shut up as soon as the intruder was dead. A few months later, they again heard him barking like crazy, this time during the day. They spotted him out in a field a couple of hundred yard from the house, not moving, just standing in one spot and barking. He wouldn't come when they called, so they went out to see what was up. Their son had flipped his ATV and knocked himself unconscious, and Toby was standing over him calling for help and making sure nothing got him.
