Topic of the Week - Dogs and Chickens

KJHorton said:

Chihuahua is my biggest concern…. We had the chicks in the bathroom for weeks before it got warm enough for them to stay out and the big dogs never paid them much attention. Different story for the chihuahua….

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Allsfairinloveandbugs said:

I watched the video you linked. The first thing I noticed is that when the female owner told the dog "stay" and then walked away to get a chicken, the dog immediately broke its "stay" command and followed the owner. There was zero reinforcement or repercussions for the dog after it disobeyed the command. Secondly, the man said they left a dead chicken tied to the dog for "several hours", and then, after "four days" had passed, the dog hadn't killed anymore chickens. Retraining an undesired established behavior takes a whole lot more time than "several hours", and the dog's chicken-killing habit was well established. In addition, four days isn't nearly long enough to determine if the retraining was successful. I'm not criticizing you for posting the video, and am not going to comment on the method used in the video, just saying that "several hours" and "four days" wasn't nearly enough time on either count to prove anything.

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Nym said:

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I saw mum put you lot back in the box!
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Now stay in the box ...

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I'll sit here and make sure you stay in the box lol

These pics were taken September 2023. I moved the chicks outside the next day and took Hodge with me each time I fed them. He was already used to the three bantams and concidered these newbies intruders more than anything else. If they go for his bone he gives them a solid bark ti move them on.

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