Cross Post * Dog that kills chickens?

[Cetawin]

RedTailRanch...that little prairie dog was not part of the family.

The chickens have been shown to the dog as 'family'.

Sad for the prairie dog though.

 

[meadow house]

I used similar technique to train my 14 month old chicken chasing/grabbing mutt. For awhile I thought there would be no way to train her with Chickens because her prey drive was so high and she is was crazy excited by the chickens. When she got out (while the chickens were out) and took the tail feathers off my favorite hen I decided to get serious.

I started by making her stay in an on leash down stay while they were freeranging around her. Any time she looked at them I told her "leave it". It really helped us to have already mastered this command. Now, while I do not trust her alone, I have had her off leash with them free range and she will avoid them. It took some consistent work over the course of the last 2 months, but what a relief now!

 

[shellgame]

I'm sure there are many testimonials to the contrary, but I'm not sure dogs and chickens ever are a worry-free mix. They genetically mix as well as cats and mice.
A dog is a carnivore. It has a predisposition to eat meat. If a dog is not into eating chicken, he's probably into chasing chickens and shaking the daylights out of them.
Even if the dog doesn't harm the chicken, the chicken probably would tell you that the dog just scares the chickens**t out of her. And we know that any kind of mild trauma can affect a chicken's health and/or egg production.
I suspect we'll see all sorts of pics now of dogs and chickens snuggling, but I'll bet once the camera goes away, the dog is drooling.

 

[Tommy]

Well, I just watched that video and have high hopes regardless of what my wife thinks. Abby, loves to run and chase things. She is one heck of a herd dog. She herds children, goats, lawnmowers, tractors, vehicles, and strangers. She has killed many possums and a few coons around here which I don't mind ofcourse cuz we have plenty of them to go around and I don't need them in the chicken coop.

I just ordered a number of ducks and have chickens in the incubator to hatch about a week before the ducks arrive next month and am building brooding pens and coops.

She is easy to train if you just work with her on anything she picks it up in about 3 tries so I think with the technique in the video and a few chickens to train her with I believe she will learn quickly not to kill them, but I have zero doubt that she will be herding the things and I can't wait to see all the chickens and ducks in a nice little bunch with her running around them. I plan on trying to show her the baby chicks and letting her kinda grow up with them and hopefully she will want to protect them instead of kill them, the only problem is that she has never had a littler of pups and will be 2 years old on the 20th of may, which will be bout the time the ducks arrive. I would think that a motherly instinct might kick in if she had had pups before, but lacking that I may have a little more difficulty teaching her not to step on them or something... oh well wish me luck. I'll keep ya posted.

 

[Mom 2em All]

I have a 2yr old Golden Retriever who is trained to hunt goose, a 1 yr old pit bull mix, and a 2 1/2 yr old dachshund. I trust none of them-however my pit is probably the only one I will be able to teach most effectively to leave my chickens alone.
Because of our near tragedy with my little rescue/house chicken and my doxie, I have no doubt she would kill them any chance she has to be near them. After what she did, and what I did, to get that chick out of her mouth- she will still follow us around, excited, when we are holding the chicken, and lick her lips. My 12 year old loves her, but that little dog drives me insane. I have been unsuccessful in training her anything. She will even chase the cows at my brother in laws'. Dumb dog, they chase her too. When she had grabbed Carmen out of my hand and refused to let go, I had half a mind to put her in my bil's coop and let the Rooster deal with her.

I have let my pit sniff our chick and I tell him, "LOOK, its our baby...what a good boy..." and he is real good. He doesnt try to grab her, or get overly excited. He knows LEAVE IT, also- but I still wouldn't trust him with the chicken on the ground. I don't think he would hurt her intentionally. Put if he pawed her with one of those big feet, he would do some damage. (Ha, I just remembered last year, about 6months old, at my brother-in-laws, he actually caught a hen- pinned her to the ground-wings flapping. If he had wanted to kill her, he easily could have-by the time I made it across the yard to save her. But, he just held her down, with his head and front legs.He had selective hearing, so he didn't 'hear' my commands until I was right next to him- then he was like, "Oh, Hi Mom...let it go? Are you sure? Okay.." rotten pup!)

My one cat is proving to be very hard-headed. She has had a bucket of water dumped on her head when looking at Carmen, and then today, she was 'stalking' her, through the fence...I turned the hose on her and she got herself trapped in a corner, but I kept hosing her down until she ran off. Hopefully soon, she will learn that every time she looks at the chicken, she gets wet.

 

[Cetawin]

Quote:
Do you mean like this?

The rat and the cat played together constantly and the cat would carry the rat all over the house. The rat died of old age and the cat laid on her cage for a solid two weeks.

The other cat just avoided the rat but never tried to bother her...the rat chased her.

 

[ticks]

I just introduced my 2 year old black lab, Layla to my chicks. Layla is a duck "hunter" and likes little soft birds in her mouth. But she seemed scared of the chicks, probably because when she went to pick up a sleeping one it wasn't dead and it flapped its wings. It put her tail right between her legs.

 

[Tommy]

Quote:

I hope thats what abby does.

 

[farmgirlie1031]

I keep my german shepherd mix put away when the poultry are out. Her prey drive is just too high. I've tried to train her with our horses but even with all the training she still tries to chase them so I don't trust her at all. She is on a leash or penned up. My other dog, A Bernese Mountain dog just adores the chicks. She is great with them and I have no worries she would ever hurt them though I never leave them alone unattented.