He's reacting to the mating ducks

[KikiDeAnime]

Our 8 (9 this year) year old male dog is excellent at guarding our birds while they're free ranging. Up until now that is...
Since our ducks are really loud when mating, he's been running up to them and chasing off our drake. He's not hurting any of them but it's quite sad that I have to stand out there now if the birds are free ranging and he's out there taking a piss or dumping one. He understand "No!" and "Leave it!" really well.

Any tips/advice for getting him to stop doing this??

 

[NatJ]

Since our ducks are really loud when mating, he's been running up to them and chasing off our drake. He's not hurting any of them but it's quite sad that I have to stand out there now if the birds are free ranging and he's out there taking a piss or dumping one. He understand "No!" and "Leave it!" really well.

Any tips/advice for getting him to stop doing this??

It sounds like he's trying to protect them, which would usually be helpful. But in this particular case it's obviously not what you want.

You could try to teach him to just ignore the ducks. Make him heel while you walk around the yard, or practice a down-stay, or something else that requires him to do something and pay attention to you. If he tries to go mess with the mating ducks, just make him keep doing whatever you told him to do. If he is paying attention to you, and you are not responding to the ducks, he may figure out that the ducks are fine when they are doing that.


Or maybe teach the dog some specific other behavior to do instead. So each time he notices the mating, you might call him to come, have him sit in front of you, and then praise him or give him a treat. Eventually, when he sees mating ducks he would think it's a signal to run and sit in front of you.

Of course almost any action could work, but you would not want to choose something that causes new problems. So barking might not be a good choice, and him expecting you to throw a stick to fetch might be a nuisance, but laying down on the doorstep or searching the yard for a chewtoy might be fine.

I have never dealt with a situation quite like yours, but I'm remembering some things I learned with a labrador retriever years ago. For example, she could not jump on people while she was busy sitting. And when it was time to trim toenails, I would put a piece of dog food on the floor and say "off." She was so busy not-eating the food that she didn't have much attention to spare for the toenails I was trimming And of course the food made a good treat at the end.

 

[KikiDeAnime]

It sounds like he's trying to protect them, which would usually be helpful. But in this particular case it's obviously not what you want.

You could try to teach him to just ignore the ducks. Make him heel while you walk around the yard, or practice a down-stay, or something else that requires him to do something and pay attention to you. If he tries to go mess with the mating ducks, just make him keep doing whatever you told him to do. If he is paying attention to you, and you are not responding to the ducks, he may figure out that the ducks are fine when they are doing that.


Or maybe teach the dog some specific other behavior to do instead. So each time he notices the mating, you might call him to come, have him sit in front of you, and then praise him or give him a treat. Eventually, when he sees mating ducks he would think it's a signal to run and sit in front of you.

Of course almost any action could work, but you would not want to choose something that causes new problems. So barking might not be a good choice, and him expecting you to throw a stick to fetch might be a nuisance, but laying down on the doorstep or searching the yard for a chewtoy might be fine.

I have never dealt with a situation quite like yours, but I'm remembering some things I learned with a labrador retriever years ago. For example, she could not jump on people while she was busy sitting. And when it was time to trim toenails, I would put a piece of dog food on the floor and say "off." She was so busy not-eating the food that she didn't have much attention to spare for the toenails I was trimming And of course the food made a good treat at the end.

Do you think if I got him some heavy duty toys, that might work to distract him while out there??

 

[NatJ]

Do you think if I got him some heavy duty toys, that might work to distract him while out there??

Our 8 (9 this year) year old male dog is excellent at guarding our birds while they're free ranging. Up until now that is...

If he's used to guarding the ducks, I do not think any kind of distraction would help. He's going to pay attention to them. So he either needs to learn that THIS thing the ducks do is not a problem, or he has to learn a new way to deal with the "problem" of ducks being noisy while mating.

it's quite sad that I have to stand out there now if the birds are free ranging and he's out there taking a piss or dumping one.

If that's the only time he needs to be outside, you could try a fence, kennel, chain, tether, one of those overhead leash things, or some other method of limiting where he can go. Of course, then he cannot protect the ducks from anything else, but it would keep him from interfering with the mating.