How To Train Your Dog Not To Kill Chickens

[susanp970]

I did the same, I tied chickens feet together around dogs neck so it hung in front of him between his front legs, after dragging the hen around for a day, he doesn't even acknowledge the chickens.

 

[Grammapat]

I tied a big barred rock to my boxer's neck - he chased the other chickens as he dragged it around! Did not work for me.

 

[TalkALittle]

Dogs learn by experiencing consequences. Your dog has learned that unpleasant things happen when he chases baby chicks when you're around. He's learned those consequences don't occur when no one is around. He's learned to associate the consequences with you. You want him to associate the consequences with the chickens. This is the exact situation where a remote electronic collar would work best. Take yourself out of the picture. Watch from a window and apply a correction for arousal and predatory behavior towards the chicks.

I do suggest that you have him wear the collar (without the battery in) for a while so that he doesn't associate the correction with the collar. It's like when you put on a watch for the first time. You are very aware that the watch is on. If you got a zap to your wrist, you'd likely associate it with the new watch. But if you wear that watch every day for a week you begin to not even feel it on your wrist. If you reached for something and got a zap you'd be much more likely to associate it with the thing you reached for rather than the watch. Same thing with the collar. Dogs can become "equipment wise" unless some simple steps are taken to prevent it.

 

[doggurl123]

Not all dogs are trainable. Some dogs are just stupid. Some dogs are just disobedient. Some dogs are just too high energy, such as sheep dogs/working dogs and are no good as pets. Some dogs understand and keep doing their own thing, even if they know you are going to throw them down in to submissive position and shake the hell out of them. They will put themselves on their backs, waiting to get in trouble, pee themselves a bit, then jump right back up, tail wagging, all forgotten and carry on running around chasing the chickens all over again. Just as some dogs chase cars. Even after they've been hit by a car and hurt. They will still keep chasing cars.

 

[kyexotics]

We went with a Pyranees exactly one year ago...Before that, we saw a predator every night, it was almost a daily ritual as to which of us would dare open the coops and face the morning carnage...Since we got him, we've lost one white silkie to a hawk, that landed and flew UNDER the netting we use which offers 100% protection from a direct route, but this one knew to land, and jump over 4' fence where there was a 12" gap between it and netting, then back over...Dog was actually chained up within 15'...Since then, nothing...We used to let him run free for the first 8 or 9 mths, then he realize he could jump the 4' fencing...We raised it 2', he realized he could jump that so we had to go back to a 40' chain...Even on chain, nothing dares to come in his fenced area...We do let him run whenever we're out there and he's a great dog with the birds, he knows who lives there and who doesn't lol He'll chase a cardinal all over the place!...But he's great with the birds, still a lil puppyish when running around yard as he'll scare the crap out of others free ranging and some of them will jump in his path and his 100lb body ain't stopping LOL He barrels em over...very rare and so far, no injuries...He's getting better but we can't recommend one enough...Nothing will challenge him!..

 

[tandykins]

I have two Mountain Feist, bred to hunt just about anything. They have been paying way too much attention to my coop, now that I moved it inside their fenced domain. They bark and go crazy anytime the chickens are in an uproar about something, and they have made my chickens really skittish so that I can't get them to cozy up to me when I bring treats. Yesterday, I had the coop door closed but not latched and one of the hens got out and was promptly killed by the dogs. My yoga instructor told me an old country solution to this problem worked with her dog. So, today when Larri started barking and being aggressive towards the chickens, I went and got that dead chicken and wired its feet together. Then, using a carabiner, I hooked the wire to his collar. I am going to make him drag it around all day and then let him loose tonight. As you can see in this photo, he was instantly shamed and he has hardly moved since then. This is a wonderful (although gross) punishment because I didn't yell, hit, or scold. I'll letcha know how his behavior changes after this experiment!

I just want to address a couple of things here. Firstly, I don't doubt that this works. Lots of things that are not a good idea work. I also want to add that I'm approaching this as someone studying behavioural science with an emphasis on animal behaviour.

Just because you are not yelling at or hitting your dog does not mean that you are not behaving in an abusive manner toward it. Making a dog carry around a corpse all day is psychological abuse - and yes, dogs are as affected as people by damage to their mental health.

Secondly, you're not making your dog ashamed of anything. That's anthropomorphization of the dog. You're assigning human emotions to a dog where there are none. That's not shame. That's fear. You're making the dog afraid of chickens because it can't escape one.

It might work if you have a dog who is attacking chickens purely out of predatory drive. On the other hand, if you have a highly strung dog who tends to lash out when fearful - you may be making a problem exponentially worse.

Just because a training method is effective does not mean that it is a good idea.

Backhanding your kid may well be effective in keeping them out of the cookie jar - but the abuse causes more harm than the problem it fixed. That may well not apply to dogs - but I think that unless you're -sure- of the long term effects on your animal as a result of it (and you'd really need an animal behaviouralist to say), I think it's unethical to do.

If something would be abusive when done to a human, it's generally a good sign that it's not okay to do to an animal. We are not that different in what harms our minds over the long term.

 

[CrazyTalk]

We're going to try and curb a jumping over fence habit our 'puppy' picked up...First he just crushed the fence which I built to withstand the weight of a full sized duck at most, not a 70+lb Pyranees...He just bent it down and stepped over it...I went out and bought enough 6' metal "T" poles to stengthen fence to withstand his current and soon to be larger weight so he can't crush it, well, now it's so strong he can just lean on it and jump over, it's strong enough to help him now! LOL So, since then we've had to leave him on his chain at night...Oh, he'll also dig and go under it, he's really resourceful and I respect that as long as it carries over into killing predators, since he's been with us, we haven't even seen one which used to be a nightly event...So before I build a bigger fence that is buried in ground, I want to try and break the habit since he;s still a puppy...We know, we're late to the party but we couldn't go out there this winter in the minus temps and work with him as we wanted to...Bad timing we and he are paying for...So, the collar is next, we know as soon as we're out of sight he'll try to get out so it won't take long to see if he'll make the connection to the attempt to get out and the shock...

Why not just run a hot wire?

 

[kyexotics]

Why not just run a hot wire?

That's next if anything...It's to the point now, when he does get out, he only stays away for a few minutes chasing squirrels that have been teasing him all day then he comes back home...It's very rare, like last night LOLOL I let him off chain to run in fenced area(over an acre) with me in there and left the gate open to which he saw one of the pesky squirrels and gave chase LOL...He didn't even have to jump this time...He disappeared into woods for 5 minutes, I went inside, looked out in a bit and there he was back in fenced area, waiting to be put back on chain....So, I may or may not do anything else...And honestly, when he hones in on something, I can't stop him and I don't believe a hot wire will either(the collar didn't work, we tried that)...it's the reason he's on chain, once he wants something, always in protection of us or flock, I can't stop him...He's too big and I'm too 'crippled'...His presence has done the job as we haven't lost a bird since we got him when we were losing almost one a day...

I try to let him off chain as many times as possible each day to keep him around the ducks and chickens which he is fine with, he knows who lives there...We did have a couple of babies get loose and his size and 'rough' love killed them...He didn't bite or chew on them, he tried to shoo them back towards mommy freaking out by her fence and his nose was enough to fatally injure them...Overall his value to our flock and the amount of grief he's saved us is immeasurable, we love him and treat him like a king!...We have 4 house dogs that no longer get to fight over leftovers, they all go to Sarge, my buddy!




He dug out a mole he smelled! Parts of yard look like aftermath of carpet bombing due to his sniffer! LOL

 

[Phoenixxx]

First of all, either the dog or I need help. One of us is obviously having a failure to communicate. (if ask the wife, she would agree it's probably me).

So we rescued a pit-mix puppy from the local animal shelter, he's about 10mths to 1 yr old now. He's a really great dog and also a very smart dog. We have free-ranging chickens at the house cus' we're country pumpkins. When I introduced the dog to the flock, he didn't show much interest and when he started to sniff or show any interest, I would say (loudly) "Leave IT", and he would back away, and now just shy away completely. So far, he has not bother the adult chickens, he leaves them alone. However, he's got this really bad fetish with baby chickens, this Spring we started having baby chickens and so
far he has killed almost all of them, like 20+. He will go out of his way to chase and then eventually maul any baby chickens he sees to death.

Here's my predicament with our dog:
Problem #1: he will leave the adult chickens alone and will only go after baby chickens, does not eat them, only mauls them until their body becomes lifeless, then next baby chicken.
Problem #2, he "understands" and "acknowledges" the work "Leave IT". He will run away as soon as he hears these two words.
Problem #3, IF I'm in the yard or he knows we're outside, he will NOT bother the baby chickens.
Problem #4, dog will only go baby chicken hunting when it's "quite" outside and nobody is around. <= sneaky little canine!

Training so far:
Walking on leash with dog, he doesn't bother the chickens. He knows the words "Leave It". I've had a baby chicken in his nose/in front of his face and he will look the other way, as if he either "knows" I'm going to yell at him for looking at the baby chicken or he "pretends" he doesn't have any interest at the baby chicken.

I am not sure about the dead chickens around his neck training, doesn't sound inviting to me or having the kids see their dog with a stinky dead chicken tied to its neck. I'm open for shock-collar solutions but also don't want to invest a lot of money for something that's only a band-aid solution.

My question is, how does one deal with a dog that only kills baby chickens when nobody is around? Love the dog and he's great with kids, guards the house well and keeps stranger and critters away but just can't handle him annihilating my flock of chickens.

I open for any suggestions/help.

Thank you.

I know you wrote this ages ago and I haven't continued down this thread to see if anyone else has suggested a solution, but what about teaching him to be gentle? My puppy LOVES the "babies" (I call anything that she's supposed to protect a "baby"). Every time I have a hatch she likes to investigate the brooder. When she can, she'll pick up a chick, carry it over to the couch, and then "bathe" it. Naturally, doggy-bathing involves some combing with teeth so instead of trying to get her to leave the chicks alone I just taught her to be "gentle" and "no bite". When she gets too excited and starts getting rough and not listening, baby goes back in the brooder and access to it blocked. She is extremely high-strung for her breed (kuvasz) when she's excited and really enjoys chasing escapees and catching them. She has accidentally killed two, back when she was about 4 months and I was at work. (The fellow who got her sister warned me that would happen - her sister is his third kuvasz - but that they're the best for chickens once they're mature. He also has pyrs, but says he uses them mostly for his cattle and sheep.) I got her specifically to work with the chickens so I thought, rather than trying to train her to ignore them, why not put her interest in them to good use? Now when there's a loose chicken ("baby"), I take her out on leash, first working on "easy" (approaching calmly versus running the poor thing down) and then when we're in position and have the "baby" corraled I let her catch it, telling her "gentle, gentle, no bite". Then when she has it, I grab it and tell her, "drop the baby" and then praise her for everything that was done right. So, like, if she was very gentle, I will say, "good girl, gentle, good girl!" or if she "dropped" the "baby" without hesitating, "good girl, drop the baby, good girl!" Turns out, this is paying off - not only is she improving tremendously when we work on this, but yesterday one was dumb enough to escape when she was out in the yard and I was away - that "baby" got run down, I'm sure (Athena's chase impulse is still incredibly strong) and subsequently caught, but no accidental death and not a single mark on the chicken! Oh, to teach her no bite, I grab her snout and grip it really hard, almost pinching. I don't know if that's the right way to do it, but she seems to know what it means. When I was teaching her "drop it" (inanimate objects, such as shoes) and "drop the baby" (her little charges) I'd stick my hands in her mouth and gently force her jaws apart while giving the command. I've also started working on free-ranging recently, now that I'm not working and home most of the time. She is allowed to watch the chickens - it's her job to pay attention and make sure everything is right in their world, after all - and to walk calmly among them, but the second she goes to charge one I say "no chase!" and correct her with the leash. I also get her to "sit" and "lie down" in-between meandering amongst the flock. As long as she's behaving, she can continue practicing; once she decides her urges are too strong to pay attention and listen to me anymore, she goes in the house for a break. Once she calms down, she'll let me know she's ready to try again and then we go out again. At lock-up, she goes in the coop to say "good night" but the minute the sniffing and licking graduates to grabbing (which is now very gentle and results in far fewer feather losses) she is told "out" and stays out until I'm done. If she's good the entire time and we exit together, she gets praised.

So, my point is, since your dog seems to insist on doing what he's not allowed to do when your back is turned, it might just be easiest - in the long run - to teach him care. I'm no doggy pro - Athena is my first puppy (except the family dog when I was little, but I don't think she counts ) - but that seems like the logical solution to me. I must say, mine's been a delightful - and at times rather frustrating - challenge and I don't think our work is anywhere near "done" yet, which is why I'm here looking to see how others are doing things. Now, if I can only get her to sleep in her doghouse instead of the tent shed so she's close enough to the coop to get the mink BEFORE they dig under the wall, that'd be awesome!

 

[Phoenixxx]

Thought I ought to share a few photos!

"What are those things on the other side?" Athena was raised in one chicken run with the chickens using the other run. At least until a 4' fence no longer contained her :/

"I'm sorry! Can I kiss it better?" This hen somehow managed to get from the enclosed run into the run puppy was living in. I got home from work to find the chicken in a corner, hunched and disgruntled at having been used as a plaything. Puppy teeth weren't kind to her but she healed in no time

Meeting chicks for the first time.

Fishing for babies

Guarding the babies.