English Shepherd as Poultry Guardian

[centrarchid]

Training for close interactions with chickens underway. Every evening I police up some chickens to make certain they roost where they are supposed to roost. Groups are moved to larger quarters as they grow plus have some brood combining that not all like. Pup is now coming up with Lucy and I as we pick up every bird and take it to where it needs to go. I move very slowly even when catching chicks on the ground. Pup is not longer snapping and birds and is starting to walk behind them very slowly nudging them along. Lucy's efforts actually more productive as she points birds hiding out of my line of site. Lucy is getting like Scoob used to be helping me police up birds on ground and holding point on every broody until I look at it. Hun is coming along very well. She also fights with my kids in yard a lot. Bond growing strong there.

 

[Erba]

I have a three year old Shetland Sheepdog that likes to chase/round up chickens (it's his nature) So I slowly let him into the pen to get to know them. When I let the chickens out, I make him sit beside me. I don't need him herding them, the rooster sort of does that job with only five hens. The dog had a showdown with the rooster for startling a hen and now he makes a big circle around the flock. I wouldn't leave them alone together though. The dog stays in the house when I'm not home.

 

[centrarchid]

I am also letting pup into pens to walk slowly among the chickens in each. I subtly get on too her for paying them to much mind. We are already at point where she can be with Lucy, the adult female dog, in the same pen without getting overly riled. Getting into pens takes away some of the mystery concerning what is inside.

 

[Shelly’sflock]

Following, I have a blue healer I’m training with my flock. Ideally not first choice for poultry but she is catching on to walk around and keep them close on property and lays with them as they free range. Only issue I’ve had is her jumping at them barking trying get them to play (2times) . I make her quit immediately, she’s learning her job but still a puppy!

 

[centrarchid]

My pup is rapidly gaining ability to outrun chickens. I am working on getting her to invest less effort as her capacity increases to catch them. She is backing off well. She is starting to beat me to poultry yard perimeter where she will get zapped if not careful. I do not want her zapped yet. This weekend a little bridge will be made she and Lucy can use to cross into poultry area without risk of being zapped. Then I can make fence a little more fox tight assuming next fox does not figure out how to use bridge as well.

Pup got bit by her first foe this evening. An almost 6' Black Rat Snake was getting ready to go after another clutch of chicken eggs. Game hens doing best to fight snake off which they seem able to do so long as lamp used to light barn makes snake visible to hens. Lucy killed snake with a lot of help from my 5 year old daughter. Lucy very good at biting snake, breaking vertebrate without getting bit herself. Pup got bit in mouth which set Lucy off and did not make me happy either. Pup not phased.

 

[fisherlady]

When training my 2 ES around birds I made sure they were able to burn off some energy in the front yard first so they weren't as prone to over excitement in the chicken yard.
Also, when young my 2 were trained for some basic commands. ..."STOP" was a priority, done on leash in yard, near road, and anywhere else at random. They learned me yelling that word meant to halt immediately and wait for next command. Initially done on leash, then while loose but close, eventually from a distance.
..."DROP IT"... self explanatory, but good to train so if they are mouthing something dangerous to them you can hopefully intervene.
...."LEAVE IT"... this one frustrates Dillon to no end, lol... but they have been taught no matter how tempting they are expected to ignore some items if the human says so.
..."NEVER YOU MIND THAT"... I know, odd phrasing, but just a saying I used to tell them that what was going on off property wasn't something they needed to worry about or bark about. Basically the phrase tells them their services aren't needed for that issue. They now recognize it as basically letting them 'off duty' for whatever they thought they needed to worry about. Now once said they seem to be fine to relax and walk away. I guess they trust my judgement, lol.

My dogs are also taught from day one that food can be taken away by a human at any time. Doing this and always praising and rewarding their patience and lack of reaction has resulted in them not being food aggressive and they will now even allow cats and chickens to share their bowl. I stressed this especially with Dillon who isn't as patient with the birds (Mindy adores the birds and is the least food driven dog I've ever known). Dillon can now lay in the yard and ignore birds eating all around him and even under him and he may nudge a bird away from his dish but if a bird persists he backs up, sits and gives me a pitiful look....
I know everyone has different priorities in their training, I have just found these manners to be very helpful when having dogs around chickens. And I have found ES to be VERY smart with training and excellent at recognizing many, many simple command words and phrases.

 

[Shelly’sflock]

When training my 2 ES around birds I made sure they were able to burn off some energy in the front yard first so they weren't as prone to over excitement in the chicken yard.
Also, when young my 2 were trained for some basic commands. ..."STOP" was a priority, done on leash in yard, near road, and anywhere else at random. They learned me yelling that word meant to halt immediately and wait for next command. Initially done on leash, then while loose but close, eventually from a distance.
..."DROP IT"... self explanatory, but good to train so if they are mouthing something dangerous to them you can hopefully intervene.
...."LEAVE IT"... this one frustrates Dillon to no end, lol... but they have been taught no matter how tempting they are expected to ignore some items if the human says so.
..."NEVER YOU MIND THAT"... I know, odd phrasing, but just a saying I used to tell them that what was going on off property wasn't something they needed to worry about or bark about. Basically the phrase tells them their services aren't needed for that issue. They now recognize it as basically letting them 'off duty' for whatever they thought they needed to worry about. Now once said they seem to be fine to relax and walk away. I guess they trust my judgement, lol.

My dogs are also taught from day one that food can be taken away by a human at any time. Doing this and always praising and rewarding their patience and lack of reaction has resulted in them not being food aggressive and they will now even allow cats and chickens to share their bowl. I stressed this especially with Dillon who isn't as patient with the birds (Mindy adores the birds and is the least food driven dog I've ever known). Dillon can now lay in the yard and ignore birds eating all around him and even under him and he may nudge a bird away from his dish but if a bird persists he backs up, sits and gives me a pitiful look....
I know everyone has different priorities in their training, I have just found these manners to be very helpful when having dogs around chickens. And I have found ES to be VERY smart with training and excellent at recognizing many, many simple command words and phrases.

My girl Missy, knows drop it, stop, sit, lay so far that is what she knows, I’m very lucky bc she waits for my direction after correction. She’s very trainable and also loves chew on something under the tree as the chicken free range. She’s only four months old, but she’s very watchful an reserved for a puppy. I also have a boxer Pitt mix that has helped with keeping her gaurd up with “strangers” an making it known they’re seen an waiting to bounce into action given cue! I like to raise mine on pack mentality, everyone has a place, I am leader, they learn from me an they love me an everything including the grass is ours that I permit to be on it an only something I approve of! But that’s what works for us because we also have our own business an our alpha dog Lexi is eyes on everything. I stay at home so training an learning is consistent an reiterated until they can function without it.. It works for us! Lol

 

[centrarchid]

Energy is being expended prior to each move to poultry yard. We are up on verbal commands. She will need some awareness of chickens later to help with finding them for me. At some point she needs to be able as Lucy does, be an extension of my senses, not just a tool to do my bidding.

 

[centrarchid]

Terms in use:
Leave it (here not finding context where "drop it" would give additional advantage)
Stop - stand in place
Hold - maintain position and orientation, dog and I know same object
Go - release to something
Check it - go through inner perimeter of pen pushing birds as we go
Outside - get out from whatever pen or building we are in
Inside - get into whatever pen or building door is available to
Check Chickens - go to poultry yard
Hunt it up - look for something (usually do not know what is present except chickens giving a warning call), pup needs get a handle on how she promotes responses
Get it - go for kill
Chout - something odd, look for it (used with Lucy concerning proximity to fence or snake she may not be aware of), where I am aware of something dog is not. Lucy will look back at me to see where I am looking
Hot - fence on


These words have special meaning for Lucy:
Fox
Hawk
Snake
Coon
Dog

Pup has "leave it" down which has to be used periodically as we use "check it". There are times I need here to push birds to help do head counts. Pup only knows about 1/3 of words.


We have big storm brewing here now. Hot with huge amount of lightening. Dogs all watching it in the yard with me until thunder got close.

 

[fisherlady]

She has a great start then. For us we have used both "leave it" (to avoid an issue from the start when we see it) and "drop it" in case dogs have found something without us knowing and we need them to drop it immediately. They are rather interchangeable and just a habit we have gotten into based on our normal conversations with the dogs.
These dogs have a great vocabulary and even if a phrase isn't one they have been trained on they will be able to figure out more complicated commands if they have multiple familiar words in them.
I have a habit of talking to the dogs a lot, and these dogs are sponges and quickly absorb new words by association.
'Porch'... 'front gate', 'side gate', 'back gate', 'out front', 'out back', 'power line' (runs along rear of property), 'top coop, 'bottom coop'...along with dozens of others. Using the same word when we have gone to each location now allows me to add that location into a string command.... "go out back and find the babies (chicks)".... or "go check the power line", "check under the coop and get it", "go get into car, truck...etc"
As they are learning new words or commands I try to include hand gestures with each instruction. They now have a great variety of silent signals they will also follow. This allows for control at a distance. They can go to a distance, stop and look back for instruction and a sweep of the arm or a hand held up a certain way provides them guidance. Long distance instruction takes time to develop but comes in handy. Even in the house simple hand gesture instructions are nice when we are on the phone or conversing with someone, we can use hand signals to get the dogs to do something without having to interrupt the conversation...."sit", "lay down", "be quiet", "go out of room", "move over", "come here", "stop"....all have hand signals which can be used in place of words.
I enjoy the dogs, and their assistance is invaluable for protection of the birds. The more the dogs understand our communications the better it is for all and these dogs are fun to teach and even after many years their intelligence and intuitive abilities still surprise me sometimes. They seem to always be happy to learn something new so I keep talking to them and enjoying their company.