I have a lab, and believe it or not, she is excellent with my chickens. When we first got the chicks, I put her in a down stay, and let the babies, come up to her, and check her out. I wanted to see her reaction. But although she was shaking like a leaf (anxiousness, I'm sure) any time she tried to get any closer than a sniff, she got her correction signal. When I finally saw her start to relax with them on her blanket, the experiment ended. She would get huge praise and treats. I did this a few times when the chicks were little, and she is awesome with them now, 2 yrs later. Now our Cavachon puppy is a different story. The chickens were here first, and she is much harder to train than my lab was!! She thinks their her play toys. So I guess the moral of the story... I was surprised that our big dog did better than our little sissy dog.
