HELP! My dog chases my chickens.

[Kimlovesherchicks1224]

I have a poodle chihuahua mix named Hazel and she is about to be 3 years old. We recently got chicks and when they were in the brooder we let her see them and she would lick them. Now my chicks are 7 weeks old and we moved them to the coop. I open their coop door in the morning and then I open their run door and let them go out to free range. However when I let my dog out she likes to chase the chickens and she sometimes bites their feathers. The chicks have learned to be afraid of her but one of them called Buttercup just stands there, sometimes she pecks Hazel and she backs off for a little bit. I wish that the other chicks just peck her too but we are sort of hoping that when they get bigger she will leave them alone since she is only 11 pounds. For now though we need to find a way to train her to leave the girls alone. So, any suggestions?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Never let her off a leash when birds are out and make sure the pen is secure against her. Size of the dog does not matter. We've had toy breeds wipe out our pekin flock before and those ducks were the same size if not more.

 

[wyoDreamer]

Your situation will take a lot of work and time.
Start training on leash right away. Dog is on leash, chickens are in their run. Walk dog around yard and make sure she is behaving.
Walk the dog past the chicken run and make her ignore the chickens as she walks past.
When she can do that well, take her over by the chicken run and make her lay there next to you. If she focuses attention on the chickens, poke her and make her focus on you. You want her to ignore the chickens. Maybe use treats when she ignores the chickens.
When she has this practice down and ignores chickens in their pen, do the same training with chickens in the pen and dog off leash. When she has this down pat, put the dog back on leash and let the chickens out into the yard. Go threw the walk on leash and lay in the yard without any focus on the chickens -all while leashed. You don't want any chances for the dog to chase the chickens or you will be back to square one.
Eventually, she will get it and hopefully she will become safe to be around the chickens. But it will take time and effort.

 

[Kimlovesherchicks1224]

Your situation will take a lot of work and time.
Start training on leash right away. Dog is on leash, chickens are in their run. Walk dog around yard and make sure she is behaving.
Walk the dog past the chicken run and make her ignore the chickens as she walks past.
When she can do that well, take her over by the chicken run and make her lay there next to you. If she focuses attention on the chickens, poke her and make her focus on you. You want her to ignore the chickens. Maybe use treats when she ignores the chickens.
When she has this practice down and ignores chickens in their pen, do the same training with chickens in the pen and dog off leash. When she has this down pat, put the dog back on leash and let the chickens out into the yard. Go threw the walk on leash and lay in the yard without any focus on the chickens -all while leashed. You don't want any chances for the dog to chase the chickens or you will be back to square one.
Eventually, she will get it and hopefully she will become safe to be around the chickens. But it will take time and effort.

Thank you so much this really helps me with my problem.

 

[Lisa3315]

Never let her off a leash when birds are out and make sure the pen is secure against her. Size of the dog does not matter.

×2
Chickens need to stay in the pen or the dog needs to stay in the house. I have read other stories on here of chickens dying of stress from small dogs terrorizing them, so even if she's too small to bite them she could still cause a lot of damage.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

They're likely not going to defend themselves from her. They're prey, she's a predator. And dogs will almost always chase birds because it's fun. Dogs are usually a better to ask forgiveness than permission, pleasure over patience when it comes to that stuff.

 

[Lisa3315]

Here's an active and pretty long thread of someone trying to train their dog not to chase their chickens - https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-dog-not-to-chase-my-chickens.1456533/page-11

I didn't read the whole thing, but it sounds like they've had some success keeping their dog supervised and on leash while around the chickens.

 

[bryan99705]

I know it sounds brutal and inhumane but get a shock collar, crank it on high and knock Hazel on her butt everytime she chases a bird but allow her to be around them under your supervision like when you're gathering eggs, releasing and penning them up, etc. It doesn't take long for a smart dog to learn the rules if you are firm. You need to get her trained before she kills a bird, then it's too late and you'll never be able to trust her around birds again.

 

[Kimlovesherchicks1224]

Never let her off a leash when birds are out and make sure the pen is secure against her. Size of the dog does not matter. We've had toy breeds wipe out our pekin flock before and those ducks were the same size if not more.

Thanks for your advice however the thing is that we have a fence and even before we got chickens we used to let her out in the fence. What might work is to only let her out with supervision. Do you think that that would work? When I am outside and she goes in the run through the door I tell her OUT. Then she comes out and looks at me but I am still working on getting her to leave the chickens alone when they are outside. I think that the leash idea would work to train her until she learns to leave them alone always and hopefully they will be more able to defend themselves when they get bigger.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

If you get a rooster that is big and aggressive (like a RIR) he may chase her off.