Duck guard dogs?

[JJpuck]

I am getting ducks this summer, and I want my dogs to be able to protect them (and not eat them either). What type of training should I put my dogs through in order to do this?

 

[maxpedley]

Either your dogs will eat them or they wont. If you want dogs that will protect them you need to get a terrier or a livestock guardian dog and raise it from a pup with your ducks. I have a labrador x staffie that loves the birds. She is really great with them

 

[laughingdog]

I currently have a three year old rough collie raised from three weeks. never a mean look towards domestics.

a fifteen year old german shepherd, when got August of this year, was recent and through whole life a killer of one colt, cats, chickens, guinea, geese, and ducks. took two days at most to deter her from looking hard at stock. she even played nanny dog and protected young ducks that hatched soon after got her. so cute how the dozen would run and huddle under her when hawks around.

An Australian cattle dog/red heeler that just got almost two weeks ago now, about four months, wild and attacked anything that moved or made noise first day, took two days to deter. She sounded alarm already and got flock rouned to pond, went and bayed a "panther" (jaguarundy), and al three then chased and attacked all way till couldn't hear panther screaming no more (we live in wild mountainous country).

Locals talk about how natural great pyraneese dogs around here are, but when not trained and maybe needing be contained they just roam and destroy and kill eat stock worse than others cause of size ect. I've retraind some that then were decent guard dogs but slow lazy and not economical to keep for anything but huge farms by today's standards of most. many I've heard of and seen kill stock raised even with, or bought proven loving stock protection for flock of previous owner.

I've done years of dangerous (meaning strong and usually large, but usully less aggressive than media and politicians make out for campaign scares for votes of those choosing to only believe everything they hear), breed, fighting dog/attack dog/private security dog/police dog/military dog, and hybrid work. never found a breed generally that couldn't be easily quickly retrained, bssides retrivers (not bright and too mouthy) and chows (most headstrong loyal to one original owner only, and very game all around dog I've worked with), for some reason.. lol

i just take the dog calmly along and back and fourth, slip lead at top of neck if needed or loose if not, and correct with sharp subtle sound and sharp subtle jerk of lead releasing immediately repeating as needed (never choking or holding pressure, as that then fixates the dog more on), when dog shows interest at first at all till it gives up and stops tensing trying to face, look at at all, perk ears to sounds of, or lip licking ect. when dog stops sit or lays relaxed looking away or at you then the first step is started. it helps greatly if prey ect animal isn't terrified/reactive at all, but once its been attacked and drawn blood from/injured, that can be difficult. lol

Any dog needs to know your boss and its not. i practice "take it" and "leave it" with new dogs first thing, it then gets to know house rules right off that everything is mine and as such learns to obey what when to do and not to do. toys bones food, everything is given taken given again and maybe ends up taken at end depending on how well exercise went.
if i put a baby chick in a pitts mouth from two hours to two days after starting, it won't hhurt it. its a dog, its vred and hard wired to work as programmed, and you just need to look at from third party, but then friends say a lot easier for me because i was trained to handle K-9 police and military units, and wolves and hybridizations (different job), which leaves little room for error or your dead or hurt bad.. dogs taught to how and when to attack or defend owners stock land ect are less likely to go off on someone/they shouldn't, and do less damage IF do, but can inflict fatal damage by accident if training done badly, harshly, or no to lazy and not assertive enough training is done.


Staffordshire bull terriers and jack russel terrier, those two most common trainable and effective of terrier breeds, but over all shepherds and collies (old word coined for shepherd types meaning "useful"), top list. Rotts oldest of guarding and herding breeds (most told "old breeds" are recreations of lost breeds), are great but actually lack greater mobility ect due to breeding recent for thinner tails docked that decreases their mobility. Olden times some working type dogs had tails cut off or "docked" so they weren't able to chase as effectively chaseand use to run down the lords of lands wild game animals. taxes were higher and fines for those poor commoners that had dogs to work that may hunt or let dogs hunt game. (Then useless show type owners allowed then showed and started favor and "standard for "docked" look).

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

Very important, whatever breed: 3 commands "Leave It" or "Off", "Come/Heel", "Sit Stay"

I have a Perfect Mutt & a Lab, the mutt is perfectly Trusted, the Lab requires supervision, as its just in her nature to get all riled up when the birds get flappy. And splash water. So whatever breed, it's all training.

 

[laughingdog]

Yes holly is right, id forgotten about my collie pitt mix, she learned first time corrected humanity, that new baby chicks peeping around were not to be messed with at all. she then went after my fiest her best friend even, and cats of fams,that didn't get hint.

 

[creaturelife]

today my sister gave me a new born pup that the mom didnt want it a chow mixed with German shepherd i want to train it when it gets older to protect my ducks and ect i took it in of course i would lol i feeding it goat milk i hasnt open its eyes yet the other pups past the other day it got way to cold on them i have the only other baby and its the biggest one that was born has a big head on the little sucker so how will i have to go about training it to stay with my live stock and not letting any thing hurt them or kill any of them

 

[JJpuck]

My dogs (one chocolate lab, one Australian Shepard-golden retriever mix) handle our bird (a cockatiel) very well (the Shepard mix was even bitten on the nose by the bird and didn't react at all!). I just hope that behavior will transfer over to the ducks as well.

 

[Finny]

I found with my dogs that the more they are exposed to the ducks the less interested they are in them. When I first got my ducks my dogs would go CRAZY and start barking and try to chase them (they were kept on a leash when outside so they could not actually get to the ducks.) It is now winter and i got my ducks in the summer. Now my dogs barely even look at my ducks and ducklings.

 

[martyh]

We have a 12yo Basset, an 11yo mini long hair wiener and a 7yo Westie. They hardly notice the ducks and they'd never chase them. We are actually working with the Westie to chase aggressive drakes off ducks on command and she does pretty good chasing them back to the point but never hurts them even when she catches up to them. We are looking for an outside dog to watch over the ducks and chickens. We have a fox problem.