Dogs, ducks, and a guardian goose?

[Everose]

So all three of my beautiful welsh harlequin ducks met their maker about two weeks ago thanks to my australian shepherd

Since I'll be starting over I want to train my dog with our one and only pekin. I would love input and tried and true methods of getting her to act like he doesn't exist. She has gotten over her love of chicken chasing but ducks are new thing to her. She is nine years old and really doesn't give a crap about how we feel when she kills chickens or ducks, so people pleasing dog methods won't work

Since I'm starting over I want to get a mean guardian to go with my ducks. Which breed of goose would be easy to tame, behave well with my ducks and should I get two?

I'm doing my very best to keep my dog from killing again and would love to know what has worked for other duck keepers and dog owners.

 

[SolarDuck]

I dont have geese, but I asked the same question about a guard goose awhile back and everybody who had geese that responded said their geese don't protect their ducks at all.

 

[Everose]

Whaaat I was hoping the geese would just get really pissed that a dog was intruding and would scare her away. I think she enjoys the fact that the little fat feathered birds don't fight back when she plays with them so it would be a real shock to her if it fought back and I think it would bother her quite a bit

 

[Everose]

Maybe I'll just get a kangal puppy

 

[SolarDuck]

Whaaat I was hoping the geese would just get really pissed that a dog was intruding and would scare her away. I think she enjoys the fact that the little fat feathered birds don't fight back when she plays with them so it would be a real shock to her if it fought back and I think it would bother her quite a bit

In that case, maybe? I'm not sure geese can definitely be scary to dogs and might get territorial, hopefully someone who has geese can comment. I would kind of worry that maybe if the geese chased the dog he would think they are trying to play and get too rough with them.

 

[Everose]

Yeah I might just get some anyways because im interested in breeding them and having some Christmas goose

 

[KaleIAm]

I'm very sorry for the loss of your welsh harlequins.

I have heard of a goose loving and protecting his flock of ducks - once. I believe they were all raised together as hatch mates. It was a few years ago so the details are fuzzy. The people on the goose forum might be able to answer your goose specific question better.

I have a dog who is excellent with my ducks. But he has a medium prey drive and a high desire to please me. Every time he sat calmly near my ducks I gave him a treat. He now goes near them and sits down, then he looks at me - not them. If he did something I didn't like near them I made his, "I don't like what you are doing," noise that he already understands. And when he did something I liked I praised him and told me he was a good boy!

But... If my dog had killed one of my ducks he would be on a leash 100% of the time. At that point I'm not sure a little training would get me to a comfortable level.

 

[Everose]

I don't want her (rose my aussie) to be around them all the time just want her to behave when she is around them. We can let her off the chain when just the chickens are free ranging and she doesn't bother them anymore. She jumped the fence into my duck pen while we were gone all day and she took advantage of our outing, she had actually been around them unsupervised before and apparently she didn't even try to bother them because they acted like she wasn't there and just kept on foraging when I came to let her into the house

She is a royal TURD!

 

[Percipen]

I'm so sorry your pup got to your ducks
We have a papillon and cavalier that are both 13 years and 2 bernese mt dogs that are 2 & 3 years. When we hatched our first ducks last year, we introduced them to our dogs by letting the dogs smell them (while we held the ducklings, just in case one if the dogs wanted to nip the babies) After that, when the ducklings would hang out with us around the house, the dogs could take a little sniff of the ducks but then we made them keep about a foot of space between them and the ducks after the initial sniff. Eventually the ducks realized they had the upper hand and would nip the dogs if they ventured too close for comfort. As we started letting the ducks outside more, we had to sit with them anyway, so we took that opportunity to work with the dogs on boundaries while the ducks free ranged. Now the ducks are permanently outside and the dogs hardly know they're there. We had a couple moments where the dogs wanted to play with the ducks and we had to go out and lecture them. But (knock on wood) we havent had any issues since then. They're not buddies and bffs but they coexist pretty well together. Not sure if this is helpful regarding your dog, but I hope it can be some help

 

[Miss Lydia]

Maybe I'll just get a kangal puppy

You'll have to train a Kangal too. Keep the dog and ducks separated when you can't supervise and when you can then the dog is on a leash until you get the dog to leave your birds alone. I've never allowed my dogs and ducks geese to be alone with out supervision. I had to learn the hard way too, but thankfully my dog didn't kill my gander [he bit her on the butt] just grabbed him by the neck. I actually had to train my geese to leave my dogs alone. But no poultry are any match for a dog or any animal that has teeth. So if you decide to get a LGD you'll need to learn how to properly train the dog to live with the birds not kill them.