When making a gate with help from grand daughters, the bracing was for durability rather than animal control. Domestic animals are no challenge, especially sheep. A bell weather goat is used in herds of sheep to embolden them to follow where the bell weather goat leads. Better are the specially bred dogs serving as herders. Goats favor bushes and trees as fodder, while the sheep herder dogs, black and white, low to the ground, stick to herding.