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!
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.
