My adopted dog killed my rooster and 4 chickens...

We have only owned chickens for 4 months now. At the beginning of April we adopted our dog, Loretta, and brought her back to the farm. She never seemed to show interest in our flock. She chased after them once to see them all disburse but we sternly told her NO and she stopped after that. Well...We are musicians and we sometimes have to go out of town for performances (not nearly as much now that we are homesteading). We were gone for one day and night. We had our neighbor watching our animals, as he has done many times before. The only difference is that the dogs were left outside unattended during the day for the first time ever. (Put inside over night to sleep). We left Saturday morning and when we got back Sunday afternoon our flock was dead. There are only two remaining hens and we are sure one of the two won't last long...she is definitely in shock. Our neighbor said he saw them Saturday night so she would have had to take out 2/3 of our flock within hours.

Being new to owning chickens...and dogs and definitely both at the same time, we had NO IDEA what happened. We thought they all had some weird disease and just dropped dead all in a 1foot span of each other. But after reading A LOT we realized one of our dogs had to of done it. Well...today Emerson (my boyfriend) saw her get the very scared chicken and shake the poor hen back and fourth. Luckily, she lived (SOMEHOW).

We don't want to have to get rid of Loretta...she is such a wonderful dog. She is very sweet and is a smart dog. She is about 2 and we adopted her from the shelter. Her and our other dog Hank are very good friends now. We have ducks that roam the yard and, although she hasn't shown any interest in them, we are nervous because she didn't show interest in our chickens until we were gone and nobody was there to stop her.

Any advice is SO appreciated! I have read and had people tell me that a shock collar could help since she is older - apparently it might help while also training her?

As horrible as it is to say, I was only pretty attached to our rooster. I am definitely sad that our chickens are gone....it didn't hit me until today when i looked out the window and didn't see them clucking around Our rooster was SO great and had such a great way about him. Some days, when I would wake up a little late, he would hop over the fence and meet me at the feed can and then walk back to the coop with me to his ladies. Thinking of them make me sad and I hope they didn't feel pain when they died.

Anyways, my first ever post is getting long. I'm glad to be part of this community. THANK YALL!
Sincerely,
A new homesteader, Earth lover, and fur-mom to a mass murderer dog.

PS)Loretta is also a digger, which is how she got to our flock. If you have ANY advice of digging dogs, that is also appreciated!

Well the advice I have heard to break dogs from killing chickens is gruesome, but FIL swears by it. You take one of the birds your dog has killed and tie it to the dogs neck, so the fog cannot get to it. The bird slowly rots and stinks and the dog cannot get away from it. Eventually the dog is so disgusted by the smell of chickens they never want anything else to do with them.
Another thought, to stop a digger. Bury your fencing, hardware cloth is best, at least 6inches around your run. You can also lay the hardware cloth out on the ground around the run, aproning it, this way if the dog tries to dig all she is met with is the hardware cloth.
Hope this helps!

A few strands of electric fence - starting about 3" from the bottom of your fencing should discourage her. What kind of dog is she? Some dogs can be trained to coexist peacefully with chickens, some cannot. Some are easy to train, some require long periods of extensive, consistent training and that doesn't even always help. Separation sounds like your best option at this point, although it sounds like you tried that and she got around that.

My dog is a chicken murderer too. I love my dog and I love my chickens and I don't want to have to choose between them so I have to make sure a) the dog has no access and b) the chickens' fencing is secure enough to resist the dog should it gain access.
Clearly leaving them all for long periods of time won't work unless you kennel the dog or put the chickens in a coop.

I am so sorry for your lose. Dig down about four inches and use fencing under ground my husband may do 6 inches. I have never had anything dig under. If that seems scattered I can go into more detail. Your post brought back memories and I'm sad for you and me right now.
Remember good dogs go bad when we're not around and things happen.
Sorry about your rooster you probably can't replace him.

Take 4-foot hardware cloth and bend it into an "L" shape and fasten it along the entire length and width of your fencing enclosure. The vertical portion, of course, attach to the existing fencing. The horizontal part that would lay along the ground is better if you bury it a few inches below ground. The dog will not think of backing up 2-feet to start digging. I've never heard of this method failing.

We have two little maniacs that would kill every chicken we have in very short order. A working Jack Roussel terrier and a Patterdale terrier. We've got to secure the chicken enclosure like I mentioned above or pen up the dogs so the ladies can get out and forage for a while.

It's conflicting emotions when a dog you love kills chickens that you love! With good security you don't have to choose one over the other.

Oh BTW electric fencing or wire is a great idea.

To stop a dog from digging holes, find a hole she dug. Fill it to the top with water. Stick the dogs head in it. They dont like getting submerged and has worked for me in the past with boxers and labs

turboscooby07 said:

To stop a dog from digging holes, find a hole she dug. Fill it to the top with water. Stick the dogs head in it. They dont like getting submerged and has worked for me in the past with boxers and labs

Click to expand...

And what did it do for their trust in you? How likely were they to let you grab and handle them after that? I think it would be far more likely that they associate the experience with you filling the hole with water than with their behavior of digging it. There are far more effective ways to deter digging that don't risk unwanted fallout.

TalkALittle said:

turboscooby07 said:

To stop a dog from digging holes, find a hole she dug. Fill it to the top with water. Stick the dogs head in it. They dont like getting submerged and has worked for me in the past with boxers and labs

Click to expand...

And what did it do for their trust in you? How likely were they to let you grab and handle them after that? I think it would be far more likely that they associate the experience with you filling the hole with water than with their behavior of digging it. There are far more effective ways to deter digging that don't risk unwanted fallout.

Click to expand...

I doubt it affected the dogs behavior very much. I do not know how effective the punishment was, but dogs understand bad behavior equals reprimand. What you are describing is an abused dog.