How to train my lab not to chase my chickens

Even if you think you have gotten her trained, don't trust her until you are completely sure that she won't hurt them. My greyhound is an ex racer who was trained to chase. We thought we had him trained not to attack, and he was a good boy, but as soon as you turn your back on him, he will chase. We have lost a few to him (including my favourite chook, Chelsea😭). We still don't let him near the chickens.
I hear you. I can't even trust her with a pizza on the table when I leave the room.
 
You are going to laugh at this one...we have an electric fence...She doesn't care. We also tried the shock collar. It would startle her for a moment, however, she would just keep going. She got attacked by two Pitbulls a few years back and got badly hurt. We were told that she has a different relation to pain since then. She is a good dog, however, maybe not the smartest one. I still love her though. She is a lab and therefore very food motivated. I might have to try the food/treat method.
Thank you for your input though, I appreciate all the things that people have tried.
Your dog sounds just like our dog...the most lovable, annoying, untrainable dog in the world. She's part lab too. (I didn't know labs were bird hunting dogs!)
 
Your dog sounds just like our dog...the most lovable, annoying, untrainable dog in the world. She's part lab too. (I didn't know labs were bird hunting dogs!)
My older dog is also a lab. She has caught, mice, rabbits, baby robins, and (surprisingly), a bluejay. Labs were bred to retrieve waterfowl from lakes after the birds are shot by the hunter. As a result, they have a high prey drive
 
My older dog is also a lab. She has caught, mice, rabbits, baby robins, and (surprisingly), a bluejay. Labs were bred to retrieve waterfowl from lakes after the birds are shot by the hunter. As a result, they have a high prey drive
Yeah, I realize that now, just wish we knew that before we got her, she wants to hunt our cats, and she goes crazy over chickens so now our dreams of getting them are cuput, (if I spelled that right).
 
I am sorry about your chicken. It must have been awful to see your chicken killed by another one of your pets.
It was, and he is so fast, we couldn't grab him. He now will stop if I shout or point my finger at him, he has learned that it means I am in charge. But we still can't have him out with them, in fear that we won't be there to stop him. At this time, we are being really careful: our rooster has a toe injury, a chicken has a blind eye and we have a 6 week old chick - they would all be dead in seconds before we could do anything. Hopefully sometime in the future we will be able to train him! Good luck with your dog, I hope you can train him. Also, we don't let him eat any birds, the rule is: if it has feathers, you can't eat it.
 
I'd put a secure fence between them. When it's in their nature, it's near impossible to break and you don't want to tempt her. I have two terrier mutts, so I have digging to worry about as well. We buried the fence a foot in the earth to discourage digging in the permanent run and I've disciplined them more than a few times if they've gotten nippy; one actually tried to take a chick right out of my hand!

If by unfortunate circumstance she kills one, we've found the "White Fang" method to work on most dogs: tie it to the dog's neck for a bit. It's not the kindest method, but it's made most our dogs think twice about hurting our poultry. (We call it that because that is what White Fang's owner did when he killed chickens in the novel)
 
What worked for my dog was a good old Jekyll and Hyde routine. She killed my parents' banty rooster when she was a 10-month old puppy. (Or a least, his body was found near a pile of her chew toys and the death was ruled highly suspicious). I spent about half an hour with that dead rooster in one hand and a stuffed dog toy in the other, teaching her the difference. We played with the toy, chewed it, tugged on it... talking happy talk the whole time, and then I switched and offered her the dead rooster "How 'bout this one?" As soon as she opened her mouth to take it, I yelled NO! in my deepest angriest voice and smacked her across the nose. Waited a few seconds, then went back to happy playing with the stuffed toy. We repeated this several times until she learned that I would LOSE MY ****ING MIND if she touched that bird and she started being scared and backing away as soon as she saw it.

Later on, when she was 2 or 3 years old, we taught her to care for our chicks by teaching her that she got in trouble if they got upset and flapped for any reason. I used to balance one on her head, and if she moved at all and made it flap, she got a "No!", but if she held perfectly still she got treats.

This worked for me, but she's a herding dog, not a hunting dog, and she never really wanted to chase chickens except when she was a puppy.
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