top 5 breeds of dogs

[eKo_birdies]

Quote:
my APBT is the best guard of my 250ish free range birds. she has 40 acres to cover to keep them all safe and she does an AMAZING job.

i will say i got lucky and rescued (what i perceive to be) the best APBT ever

.. i NEVER expected her to be this amazing w/ my birds. it has been a pleasant surprise.

I have 5 other dogs (a yorkie, 2 scotts, a mutt dog, and a rott) and they all LOVE them, so i guess it really just depends on how you train your dogs. i should add that none of my dogs grew up around chickens, the chickens came after.

 

[noodleroo]

I really like the 'chicken dog' pictures; keep um comming, please.....

 

[BLaBauve]

I strongly agree any breed will work if trained properly. And the younger the dog the better... it's great if they grow up with the fowl. I've had my dogs long before the chickens... and some of the dogs want to eat them and some don't. Out of my 7 dogs, 4 of the dogs do well with the chickens all the time. I have 2 weimeraners that would kill them as well as one of my pitties.

Here are pictures of some of the dogs that don't want to eat them.

 

[noodleroo]

BLaBauve; Love the pics! Especiall the 3rd one!

 

[kelliepulido]

those are the cutest dogs I love that brown

 

[savingdogs]

I've only had poultry a year, but I have six dogs and foster dogs regularly from the humane society, have probably had 20 other dogs here as well. Quite a few had little or no interaction, but the ones that stuck out were the ones listed.

Our good luck has been with:
boxer/pit
ridgeback/pit
golden retriever
border collie (best of all)
basset hound
onsense (sp?)

Our bad luck has been with:
doxies
pharoah hound/pit
english pointer
great dane
labrador retriever
karelian bear dog
washington native coyote!

It would seem it has mostly to do with how much prey drive the dog has, but it can be individual. The doxie who tried to kill the duck is excellent with goats, the golden retriever who is wonderful with all livestock kills rats, and the english pointer actually dropped the bird when I asked (but it later died, so that could not go on the good luck list). We were also quite worried about the boxer/pit I listed first, but after a year of living with them behind a fence, she encountered some on HER side yesterday and did excellent, so I put her on the top of the good list. Training helped. And NONE of these dogs were raised with livestock at all.

I think it was very helpful to have the poultry become boring (behind a fence) before the introduction. It made it very uneventful.

 

[darkmatter]

We had a Newfoundland-border Collie cross that we trained. He would guard the chickens, we never had a predator problem when we had him. Finally died of old age, I miss him still. We could put feed on his nose as he was laying down and the chicks would take it off his nose without him trying anything. He would just sit out and watch the chickens free range and chase off stray dogs and foxes. Like others have said, it's not just the breed of dog, but how he's trained plus his individual personality. We briefly had a terrier type dog that was untrainable around any other small animal/livestock---rehomed him.

 

[speakup4kids]

I honestly don't worry at all about my lab "hurting" my chickens. She didn't harm the one she had last week at all...

She probably missed the good old days

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

Well we got our new rescue home yesterday ( 7 mo golden retriever/Great Pyrenees cross) and she took a look at the chickens free-ranging. Interestingly, even though she was on a leash with me, our rooster sounded the alarm and everyone started heading for shelter. They recognized that it was a new dog. Riley (RIP) went out off and on all day and they never even batted an eye.

Of course, she's still under the effects of anesthesia and pain medication so we'll see how she reacts in a few days. She has to be walked on a leash for 7 days, so it will give us time to work with her a bit and we certainly won't let her off leash when the chickens are free-ranging for a LONG time.

Seems she likes her new home:

 

[teach1rusl]

If trained well, golden retrievers. They are very much people pleasers. Some look at labs and goldens as "bird dogs," but they're retrievers, not manglers. Mine were very easy to train to be around the chickens. However, these are VERY people oriented dogs, not livestock dogs. So IMO shouldn't be kept as totally outside guardian dogs; Plus they struggle w/heat due to their undercoat...

ETA: OTG - your rescue dog is a beauty!!