Anyone trained their dog to stay away from chickens like this?

[BigBlueHen53]

I think you did just fine, but quit letting the kid torment the dog like that.

 

[ChickenShepherd_6116]

I don't think that was aimed at you ...

Maybe not, but "The thing that is abusive is the fact you keep letting the dog murder chickens" made it seem like it was... Apologies if it wasn't!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I may be wrong but I thought there was a post a while back that ... sounded more like what that post was aimed at. Phhooo. If that even made sense! I just made myself dizzy, lol!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Anyway it's the kind of thing it's best to just ignore.

 

[ChickenShepherd_6116]

Anyway it's the kind of thing it's best to just ignore.

That's true. I apologize, I got heated

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Oh, mercy, I didn't mean that as a reprimand! I just meant it wasn't worth letting it bother you. Sorry for the confusion. <blush> I seem to be wreaking havoc everywhere I go tonight, lol.

 

[reddingchicken]

My dog has killed SO MANY of my chickens, and I am at my wits end. I have heard of training methods using an e-collar, which I have and he is trained on in other areas of his life, and I am wondering, has anyone used an e-collar to teach their dog not to kill chickens? In more depth, the method is this: put a chicken in the yard, and then release the dog while you hide and watch. Once the dog tries to go after the chicken, you shock him on a very high level with the e-collar. Basically he will associate chasing chickens with pain, and he wont do it anymore. Does this work? Is it "abusive" to do this to your dog? My thinking is that a moment of pain for my dog is worth it if it means the life of all my birds.

Shock collar seems reasonable, if that doesn't work give him to Kristi Noem.

 

[Mamahen64]

My dog has killed SO MANY of my chickens, and I am at my wits end. I have heard of training methods using an e-collar, which I have and he is trained on in other areas of his life, and I am wondering, has anyone used an e-collar to teach their dog not to kill chickens? In more depth, the method is this: put a chicken in the yard, and then release the dog while you hide and watch. Once the dog tries to go after the chicken, you shock him on a very high level with the e-collar. Basically he will associate chasing chickens with pain, and he wont do it anymore. Does this work? Is it "abusive" to do this to your dog? My thinking is that a moment of pain for my dog is worth it if it means the life of all my birds.

I've never had one of my 5 dogs kill any of my chickens.
But my Grandpa was a chicken farmer and when he his dogs would kill a chicken he would tie that chicken around his neck for 2-3 days and they never killed a chicken again. So when my neighbor's German shepherds kept killing her chicken's I told her about this and she did it and they haven't killed a chicken since. And while a electric shock might help it's no worse than those who use them to stop their dog from barking, which in my opinion is just sad.But trying to train ur dog to stop doing this is worth a try.Good luck.

 

[Gkc]

That would work, unless he is so instinct driven that he ignores the shocks and goes for the chickens. It's not inhumane or animal abuse.

Sometimes individual dogs need different kinds of training than others because they don't learn with a particular method. Strictly positive reinforcement does not work with all dogs. Like my mastiff. Instead some individuals or breeds need to associate their behavior that you don't like with something the dog doesn't like such as a simple shock.

You have to think that it's either you train him, or he will kill more of your birds. It will likely take more than once to teach your dog to stop going after them.

My son brought his catahula dog here and he’s about a yr old. Happy pleasant dog but he’s so big I’m afraid he will hurt the chickens. I have him on a long leash. He could get to the chickens that walk over to his area. Usually he never gets up and just watches them walk by. A couple of times I’ve seen him walking up to them slowly like stalking them and I yell at him and he bounces around like I was only playing. I’m still not turning him loose but I’d like him to be able to roam the property and keep predators away. Yesterday a big feral cat was just outside our gate and the dog started barking like crazy my husband went running out and saw the cat and it ran away. Maybe he was saving our chickens but probably he would have barked if we didn’t have chickens lol

 

[akitafriendakita]

I have an American Akita with a high prey drive. The only way I could train her from staying away from my chickens is just constant repeated discipline/positive reinforcement training over a month or two.

I have been doing training with her since puppyhood so she already had a good idea that any moment or thing she does could be a training session. This helps, if your dog is just completely untrained, you're going to have a hard time jumping straight into more complex training like how to interact with prey animals. I would start with simple training first so your dog understands what training is if you haven't done this, such as sit, lay, stay, what "NO!" means, etc.

When I got the chickens, she was instantly locked into them/wanted to chew on them so I started with only supervised on-leash interactions. The chickens would remain behind a fence where she could see them for extra security since I can't really control the chickens. I would walk just far enough away from the chickens where she could see him but she wasn't "locked on" staring at them and getting excited, then I would give her treats for walking by and ignoring them/looking away from them. I slowly would move her closer and closer during more training sessions. I also punished her at times if she had an accident of jumping at them with a firm "NO!" but it was almost entirely positive reinforcement training with treats for ignoring the chickens.

Eventually you reach a point where the dog will feel like it's a better idea to look away from the chickens and dodge them because they think they might get a treat for it. She is fine off-leash with them outside now next to her now, and she makes a big bubble around them to give them space so she won't get in trouble. Sometimes she accidentally scares them but it's never intentional and I make sure to remind her that it's still bad to get near them and praise her for ignoring them just to make sure the training sticks.

If you have a dog with a high prey drive, it's very unlikely they'll ever be able to easily interact with the chickens. Even friendly dogs who can interact with chickens sometimes accidentally harm them while trying to play with them gently so it's not really worth trying to train for that. Just go for training to ignore chickens.