Ducklings are here and my dog has lost his mind

[tkathleen]

Our 3 new 2 day old Pekin ducklings are here in a brooder in the corner of my kitchen and my dog, having caught a glimpse of them, is whimpering and carrying on outside a baby gate. He hasn't calmed down for 2 hours! Not sure if he wants to eat them or play with them....

 

[Sunny the Hippie Chick]

Many dogs think that chicks or ducklings sound like sqeaky toys to them...

What I found helps. Never give a dog a toy that sqeaks or it will think it can play with any thing that sqeaks..


Or the flapping of wings.. The movement gets to their hunting instinct...

 

[michelle1017]

The first day or 2 after we got our duckies my dog thought they were squeaky toys too. They are now 3 weeks old and he could care less about them.

 

[tkathleen]

Funny, I had been worried about my cat but not really the dog. He acts like he's suffering from paranoid schizophrenia....Hope it wears off.

 

[Diamante]

My dog acts like a mom to my chicks when we have them. She hears them peeping and will go lay next to them and whine with a worried look on her face. Maybe your dog is like mine only with ducks.

 

[tkathleen]

He seems to be getting used to them now, comes over to glance at them then walks away and lies down. The cat has expressed no interest whatever, which is odd, since he is a birder and I thought it would drive him nuts to have a tub full of little birds in his kitchen that he can't access. My dog is a herder and hsi primary goal in life is to keep track of my children. Maybe he does think he's a duck mama, too!

-Tara

 

[Cindiloohoo]

I have a young Pit Bull dog that will birdwatch for HOURS on end when we have babies in the brooder in the house. She never bothers them...just watches oer all of them. It's cute!

 

[chickboss]

My dogs want to chase them, an no doubt that would lead to a sad ending. It was funny, because I thought it would be cute to have some wadaly ducks trucking around the farm, I would let them back in at night, and have a fenced area for when we where gone, but mostly leave them to do what they want. Figured it wouldn't be that hard to get the dogs to leave them alone because they haven't looked twice at all the wild game birds we have around here. LOL, the day before the ducks were due to arrive, my female lab/mastiff caught a quail, ran with it in her mouth all the way from the other side of our property and gently deposited her prize at my feet. I was like "Good dog, err, but good dog". She was so proud of herself, and all I could think was how much more this was going to set me back in electric fenceing. LOL. They do well with them in the house, don't mess with the brooders much, but outside, no way!

 

[tia]

My border collie wanted them to all just stay together on one side of the brooder. He just couldn't stand them all going in their individual directions. His border collie head went back and forth back and forth back and forth, and he was just too big to get in there and straighten things out. (poor fellow)

 

[tkathleen]

Actually, here's a funny story:
My dog, Xavier, the Corgidor has recently started jumping the fence into my neighbor's yard, which is both amusing (because his legs are so short) and extremely annoying. Our neighbor has a dog door and he just loves her. When she comes home, she was finding him there with her dog to greet her. Anyway, a few days after he'd begun this, I arrived home, wondering where my dog was. Didn't see him from the carport in my yard OR her yard, started to worry he'd run off! Then I heard whimpering. It turns out he'd jumped from her yard back into our yard but landed in the area I have fenced off for my 2 drakes and they had him cornered on my back step-could've been for hours-where he was just passively whimpering and looking persecuted. My ducks definitely have taught him who's boss!

-Tara