Dog plus chicken owners chime in please

[chickens really]

I have 5 Dogs. 3 are trained around birds and other livestock.
My Maremma lays outside by the birds when out of their pens. He is fantastic with the animals.
My Golden Retriver/Aussie is also great. She never chases my Animals.
Yorkshire Terrier also that is trained to wrangle chickens back to the Coop. She also doesn't bother the birds unless I tell her to get the chickens.
All my Dogs are perfect when unsupervised with all my animals.

 

[HHomestead]

We have two dogs. A huge 130# yellow lab who is a huge scaredy cat and will not mess with our other animals including the chickens. We also have a German Shorthair Puppy who has natural bird dog instincts plus she is an alpha dog. She has found a way into the chicken shed numerous times and I continually have to make improvements to keep her out. She has grabbed the chickens by their necks a could of times but has a soft mouth so did not harm them. She corrals the chickens and now stands and points at them. Not sure if she is getting better or if she will kill them when we are not around. But her instincts are so strong, I doubt we will change her as long as we want her to be a hunting dog.

 

[Folly's place]

My GSHP, who arrived as a puppy, was easy to train that the chickens were MINE, and not to be touched. It has nothing to do with hunting pheasants or whatever!
This puppy needs to be managed better, and your coop won't keep any other predators out is she can get into it!
Are you working with a trainer for her? Have you started bird work? It's FUN!
Don't mess up like I did with Chance, our very tough and independent GSHP. Teach 'whoa' first!!! We had him on birds, and then he didn't hold his point, and fixing that was way harder.
He was the smartest and most hard to train dog we've ever had, but I'm a stubborn German too, so it all worked out...
Mary

 

[Folly's place]

Chance was also a perpetual motion machine, and much loved. I do miss him!
Mary

 

[HHomestead]

My GSHP, who arrived as a puppy, was easy to train that the chickens were MINE, and not to be touched. It has nothing to do with hunting pheasants or whatever!
This puppy needs to be managed better, and your coop won't keep any other predators out is she can get into it!
Are you working with a trainer for her? Have you started bird work? It's FUN!
Don't mess up like I did with Chance, our very tough and independent GSHP. Teach 'whoa' first!!! We had him on birds, and then he didn't hold his point, and fixing that was way harder.
He was the smartest and most hard to train dog we've ever had, but I'm a stubborn German too, so it all worked out...
Mary

German..... we have that in common. Well I am new to chickens and training puppies so I have a lot to learn. We have been looking at training options and have not yet settled on one. My sister is a vet and her methods/recommendations have not worked yet. Thanks for your advice!

 

[Folly's place]

I did obedience training with him, and trained for the AKC sponsored hunt tests. Through the GSHP club, found other nearby people also training for hunting, read some books, and had a good time out there. He was from show lines, but very 'birdy', so he had fun finding the pigeons (in training) and pheasants too. I didn't get into the dual purpose land/ water training with him though, I wasn't motivated enough!
Mary

 

[BaaKaaawk]

Hi all. First comes a disclaimer: I know that each doggo is a different 'person' and behavior can't be predicted by breed. I also realize that training, age, and various other factors come into play. But I'd very much like to hear from folks who owned dogs plus chickens and can say "My dog RoverSpotLucyBingoCharlieWhatever was around our chickens a lot and never showed even the slightest inclination to chase or harm them, plus what breed they were - or if not known, what breed they resembled. It's not time for us to get our next dog yet, but I'm in the process of gathering information for when that time does come. Thanks!

If you raise your dog with your chickens- and positively reinforce "protecting your flock" and "not eating your flock"... you will end up with a wonderful situation. My Doberman thinks he is the protector of the flock and as soon as he hears the distressed hen call- whether it be she saw a squirrel eating her food or a fox or hawk... he's there in a flash. I have no question he has saved dozens of chickens from impending death. On the flip side- I hear people try to introduce dogs that can;t even behave around people and expect them to just magically take to their flock. That's not going to work. You need a slow introduction to an adult dog and even then the chase/kill instinct may get the best of them.

 

[fisherlady]

Agreed... training, vigilance, reinforcement and maybe more training is needed for any dog around birds, but particularly dogs with high hunting drive instincts.
ALL dogs should be trained to the words "stop!", "drop it" and "leave it be" in some version, but it is even more important that those commands are thoroughly learned if they are around livestock.
My old black lab ignored our birds once she was told 'leave them be'..., she was a very calm and biddable personality.
I have puppy sat other dogs many times... The coon hound was curious and bouncy but not aggressive and with more time I think would have calmed and ignored them but she wasn't here many times.
... The golden retrievers who were regular visitors really did well after their initial fascination and bouncing around in excitement. With calm approach and positive reinforcement and a few clear and quick "No!" Or "leave it be" commands the goldens both became trustworthy around the birds. But I have found goldens (in my experience) to be the type of dog who are usually gentle natured and happy to do what makes their people happy, which makes their training simpler.
By far my best experience with birds and dogs have been with our own 2 English shepherds. The breed is by no means perfect or foolproof with chickens (No breed can be considered 100%, there are too many personality variables even within breeds) but my ES's were whelped on a farm from stock used to work the farm and were around chickens at a young age, now they are great flock dogs for me. English shepherds have been breed for countless generations to be general farm dogs... mine calmly walk through the birds, they ignore birds flapping or carrying on, they tolerate the birds tendencies to steal food with little more than calmly pushing them away or a warning snarl which generally gets ignored because the birds know they don't bite them, lol. The dogs lay in the yard or coop with the birds and it is common to see the birds lounging with (or even on) the dogs on lazy afternoons. My female (Mindy) in particular loves the birds and especially the chicks, the male (Dillon) is great around them but it is more because they are part of his 'job' rather than a love of them in particular. However my dogs will not tolerate rodents around the property (from mice sized to raccoons) all are considered a threat and immediately killed, they are good with our cats but do go after any feral ones that they deem a threat to the coop or yard area.

So my overall advice is to concentrate on a known farm friendly breed or breed mix to start with (collies, corgis, marema, great pyr, border collies ES, Aussie, and many more) and then get an experienced dog person to help evaluate the dogs general personality, calm and mindful of its person is a much better start than bouncy and hard headed!
Even puppies show their personalities rather early one and a responsible breeder should be interested in matching you with the right pup rather than just saying "these puppies are all great choices"... remember, cute doesn't matter in the chicken pen!

Good luck and happy training! It is a wonderful thing to have a good coop helper dog!

 

[fisherlady]

If you raise your dog with your chickens- and positively reinforce "protecting your flock" and "not eating your flock"... you will end up with a wonderful situation. My Doberman thinks he is the protector of the flock and as soon as he hears the distressed hen call- whether it be she saw a squirrel eating her food or a fox or hawk... he's there in a flash. I have no question he has saved dozens of chickens from impending death. On the flip side- I hear people try to introduce dogs that can;t even behave around people and expect them to just magically take to their flock. That's not going to work. You need a slow introduction to an adult dog and even then the chase/kill instinct may get the best of them.

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loving the doberman! They are a wonderful dog when raised so well! They do have a loving and protective personality, what a great flock protector for you.

 

[kristeninprogress]

My Baloo (3 years old) was introduced to chickens for the first time back in August last year. His dad is Australian Shepherd, mom is a Lab/ German Shorthaired Pointer. Just because of his mom, I was really worried about him chasing or being mouthy with the chickens, but he's amazing with them!

No chasing, no herding, and I can trust him out with them without supervision. I do think Nurture is more important than Nature in this regard, because with those breeds, I was shocked at how good of a LGD he is.