Guardian Dog for Ducks

[BigBlueHen53]

Here's my sweet girlie. See how she has one ear up, one down? That makes it hard for her to tell exactly where sounds come from. So when she hears something and can't id its source, she runs first to one door and then the other, just yelling her head off to protect us and warn off all intruders. Even if the noise came from one of us or the TV. Poor Gracie! She means well!

 

[CLovesDucks]

Here's my sweet girlie. See how she has one ear up, one down? That makes it hard for her to tell exactly where sounds come from. So when she hears something and can't id its source, she runs first to one door and then the other, just yelling her head off to protect us and warn off all intruders. Even if the noise came from one of us or the TV. Poor Gracie! She means well!View attachment 1835113

I LOVE her! She is so stinking cute!!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I LOVE her! She is so stinking cute!!

Aww, thanks. I will tell her you said so.

 

[DuckWhisperer06]

I would avoid a herding dog for the job. While we know our kelpies will chase foxes etc they will also most definetly chase the birds. We have a mareema to gaurd our flock and he is amazing. But one thing to consider with a LGD breed is the barking. They bark ALOT and loudly. If you are only on small land and have neighbours close, if they don't have barking dogs themselves they may not like you having one and put in all sorts of complaints to council. We are blessed that our neighbours also have mareemas so understand, even though our property is 25 thousand acres, we are right on boundary 1km away from neighbours house. We hear each others dogs all the time

How on earth did you end up with 25 thousand acres?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

@Muscovy Wunda would you post a pic of a mareema, please? I have never heard of this breed!

ETA: 25,000 acres, wow, that's like a small country!

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

@Muscovy Wunda would you post a pic of a mareema, please? I have never heard of this breed!

ETA: 25,000 acres, wow, that's like a small country!

Theres alot of land in inland Australia yes. Its not uncommon for properties to be in the thousands. Depending how remote you go they can get over 1million.
This is Biscuits, 7 months old. Adults are way more solid. I dunno about the other gaurdian breeds but mareemas are not your typical dog and can't be expected to act like one. Fences are a must, and they like to get up high to overlook their entire flock. So if you build them a kennel, they will spend more time sleeping on the roof then inside it

 

[katiebrock]

@Muscovy Wunda have you heard of Australian Working Dog Rescue? I follow them on Facebook and I love seeing all the dogs they rescue and hearing their stories! I am in the US, but I have a cattle dog. The ducks get on her nerves sometimes but she does pretty well with them!

 

[Ninjasquirrel]

We have a border collie mix we adopted a few weeks ago. She just got spayed so we havent been working with her as much because her activity level has to remain low to heal. But before that I would walk her put to the run and have her sit there calmly until she couldnt stand it then I'd walk her away. I did this several times a day for about 5 days. Shes now able to sit calmly in the yard with them. She still gets excited if they run or flap. The "leave it" command works quite well. She gets jealous if we pick them up pr set them in our lap. Shes not 100 percent but its only been 3 weeks. You cant expect perfection without proper training. I think any dog breed would work as long as you know how to train them.

 

[DuckWhisperer06]

View attachment 1835351 @Muscovy Wunda have you heard of Australian Working Dog Rescue? I follow them on Facebook and I love seeing all the dogs they rescue and hearing their stories! I am in the US, but I have a cattle dog. The ducks get on her nerves sometimes but she does pretty well with them!

Very pretty heeler

We just got a blue heeler puppy (Gunner) a few months back and he is pretty good with the birds. They are bred to nip at cattle so he’s a bit too rough to be around the chickens and ducks when they’re free ranging unless we’re out with them. He does know when to protect though. Our rooster has never liked my sister and his always tried to attack her, digging his claws into her legs. We had been letting them free range while we were out so the dogs were out there with us. As we were ‘herding’ the chickens back into the coop (my sister helping) our rooster turns around and charges at her. Gunner runs right behind him, grabs his tail feathers, yanks him back a few feet, then just lets go and walks off. It’s only happened once but my sister doesn’t spend much time with the chickens while they’re free ranging anymore (can’t imagine why?)

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

View attachment 1835351 @Muscovy Wunda have you heard of Australian Working Dog Rescue? I follow them on Facebook and I love seeing all the dogs they rescue and hearing their stories! I am in the US, but I have a cattle dog. The ducks get on her nerves sometimes but she does pretty well with them!

Yes! They do good work and there's also afew breed specific rescues inspired by them. She's beautiful! Cattle dogs make fantastic gaurd dogs! Alot of builders keep them on back of their vechiles to gaurd tools from sticky fingers, and they keep both animal and human out of your yard. I'd love one but too rough with sheep