Duck in love

[rehabber0909]

Help! I think my female Rouen is in love with one of my dogs! She follows her around everywhere and lays her body and head low to the ground whenever the poor unsuspecting dog is near. She was a rescue who had been struck by a car. Another duck she was with didn't make it. Don't know if was a male or not because it was dark and heavy traffic when I found her stunned in the middle of the highway.

The other problem is she's very bossy and aggressive with my smaller other dogs and cats. She puts her head down and runs them all over the place. She pecks them if they don't move fast enough. However she isn't human aggressive at all. Very sweet once you catch her lol. We got her a duckling as a companion and at first she was aggressive towards her, but has since accepted her and quacks loudly when I seperate them. Both forage outside during the day together and sleep in my bathroom at night in diapers. My question is will she always stalk my dog and lie down invitingly or am I gonna have to buy a drake in the spring? I had hoped that the female duckling would be companion enough, but now I'm not so sure.

Confused,
Cyndi

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

I do not own ducks, but from my experience with animals; what to you looks like "love" is actually submission. I would guess that the dog she is laying for is the head animal? She accepts at dogs dominance, but probably wants to be #2. So she follows and shows submission to head dog and chases and bullies the other animals, trying to claim her place. This is fairly natural animal behavior. You may at some point see one animal mount another, again this is just claiming dominance, it has nothing, little, to do with sex.

 

[rehabber0909]

It's crazy how she follows her around and waits for her to notice her. She does this head bob thing and this weird quack. If the dog is on the couch she will literally park herself on the floor in front of her and wait until she gets down before she will move. She goes to our dog gate outside and does the lying flat thing too. I don't think this dog is necessarily the alpha, but she does have the calmest disposition. Come duck owners tell me is this submission, or is my duck twitterpaited for my dog?!?! I'm not judging, just wondering. Lol

 

[mixedUPturk]

Oh your story made me Laugh! So cute!

Thanks for sharing! Ima duck owner, their anitics are note worthy!

In truth, birds can accept most animals into their "flock" and i believe this falls under "normal" :eyeroll: (whatever that is!) duck pecking order behavior. Heres a thread i found that Sort of pertains...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/974179/duck-behavior/0_100

 

[Ravynscroft]

Yep, for whatever reason she sees the one dog as her flock leader and is trying to assert her dominance over the rest of her flock... head bobs and odd quacks are ways ducks communicate so she's just trying to 'talk' to the dog...

I have 2 ducks that the younger is trying to become dominant over the older and 'mounts' her lately... same thing, it's just how they show dominance or submission...

 

[rehabber0909]

Thanks for the thread. I read it and she is definitely in love with pretzel (my poor unassuming dog) and trying to establish dominance over the others. Pretzel is the only one that we allow to roam freely in the house all the time, so she spends more one on one time in our house with her. The dog literally pays no attention to her whatsoever. It's kind of sad to watch really. Well, no it's funny. We tell her to be a good girl and stop trying to seduce our poor pretzel lol! I have to say that having ducks as pets is a very rewarding experience. I really to love their antics and personalities. They are like the nosy neighbor on the tv show Bewitched! They don't miss anything and investigate EVERYTHING! If the UPS guy delivers a package on the front steps Rosemary will waddle straight over there to check it out and give it her ok then waddle away. We rehab orphaned squirrels and we release them in our back yard, so they hang around the house. We feed them supplement food during the winter. When they are out in the yard doing squirrel things she will quack and quack. That's when I know to go say hello to them and bring them food. I have 7 dogs and when they start barking, she starts quacking right along with them lol. She has my African grey quacking too! I tell everyone she's my guard duck. She's as good as the dog for alerting you that someone is here.

 

[scflock]

I bet you could get a fortune for the eggs

 

[scflock]

. She has my African grey quacking too!

My dad had an African Grey when I was little, with a 1500 word vocabulary. True story, my dad was a bit of a hippie, and taught "Frampton" how to say "Far Out!". A while later, he was trying to teach him how to sing "Swannee River". Frampton would sing: "Way down upon the Swannee River....Faaaar Out!"

 

[WVduckchick]

My dad had an African Grey when I was little, with a 1500 word vocabulary. True story, my dad was a bit of a hippie, and taught "Frampton" how to say "Far Out!". A while later, he was trying to teach him how to sing "Swannee River". Frampton would sing: "Way down upon the Swannee River....Faaaar Out!"

That's just too much!

 

[scflock]

That's just too much!

That bird was awesome. I have a million stories. My dad was a Beatles nut. If you reached in the cage to pet Frampton, he would say "Get Back"

He had the bird before he married my step mom, and Frampton hated her with a passion. He would perch on the curtain rod, swoop down at her, then land back on the rod and go "Hahahahaha".
She called my dad at work one day and said he had to come home, Frampton was trying to kill her. When my dad walked through the door, my mom was in the bedroom with the door closed, and Frampton was slowly walking down the hall, saying "Caaaarole"