Livestock dogs and cattle

[OwnedByTheCow]

Last night my neighbors barn was broken into by a bear and her cubs and he lost two of his daughters show calves. This is the third time a bear has broken into a barn and killed livestock this week. I've been looking into purchasing a barn dog or two for myself but am having a hard time figuring out how to get my hands onto a dog or two. It seems like my best bet is to drive down south to get something decent enough to do the job.
No one in my area owns them so you all seem like the people I need to go to to help me figure out what I'm even looking for in purchasing a LGD.
Where is the best place to find them and how much money am I going to be spending on dogs good enough to do the job?
What is your experience with them?

 

[Ky hills]

Back when we had sheep, I had some Great Pyrenees. We had them to protect against coyotes and other dogs, they worked well as long as we could keep them in the pastures, some were experts at escaping. They were better contained for us in barns and smaller lots. I don't know how they would fair against a bear, they weren't around here yet at that time. The dogs we had could be pretty imposing and vicious when stirred up.
My advice on trying to locate livestock guard dogs would be to locate folks who have sheep or goats, in or around your area. County Extension folks may be able to give you names or contact information for sheep and goat producers, or maybe some folks that show lambs in FFA or 4H may know of some. A lot of the folks raising sheep and or goats have dogs and raise them to sell too.
Great Pyrenees and Anatolian Shepherds are the most common ones around here, but there are several others as well. Price wise here they can be anywhere from $100 on up to 500, with somewhere in the middle being more likely.

 

[OleScout]

We have an Anatolian/Pyrenees cross. $60 off Craigslist as a 6 month old. That was four years ago. Has made a good farm dog. Has whipped and run off anything that has come on the place but we don't have bears. This year he has started chasing buzzards when they fly over and that is a blessing. Glad he picked it up on his own because I can't imagine how you would train one to do that. Wife said a army helicopter came over real low the other day and he took off after it. Was very proud of himself for saving us all from the helicopter.