Ideas on Discouraging Neighbor Dogs

[Bigtom Turkey]

Yeah, my solution is often shooting/blowing stuff up...so ignore me lol.

 

[RiverOtter]

Having a nice polite chat with the neighbor's should happen, they might not have any idea that there's a problem. Adult to adult, just being friendly, and see how it goes.

...and yes, have a neighborly chat with the dog's owner.

Assume they are unaware of their dogs' travels, being combative or accusatory (and I know how hard it can be to avoid this, particularly if the neighbor gets emotional/defensive) won't help the situation as a first meeting.

THIS!!!!!

Ignore all other advice, especially the pellet gun nonsense. Go bring over a coffee cake and TALK to your neighbor in a polite, friendly, how-can-we-solve-this manner, and without any veiled threats like "Well, some people might shoot them.." or anything like that.

Repeat after me; You can't divorce your neighbors.

I don't care how much you love your chickens, they're not worth starting Hatfields and McCoys over. It is always, always better to use your very kindest manners and TALK to your neighbors than to dive into the hellscape that is neighbor-wars.

If it's a rental, and the pups are digging out, be sympathetic, "ooh, will your landlord freak about them tearing up the yard?" and tell them a story about your friend (me) who had a beagle named Scooter who was AWFUL about fences. That dog would go over, under and through, and run right through an e-collar fence and yelp as he got close to the boundary because he knew it would hurt but he'd still do it. And how your friend solved the problem was to use the E-fence inside the solid fence, so he couldn't run through the e-fence and he couldn't get close enough to the solid fence to dig under or climb over. And you can take it with you if you move!

And forget about a cattle prod. If you're close enough to use it, you're close enough to drop a slip-lead over the dog's head, which is a much better idea all around. Once you have the dog on a lead you can call up the neighbor to come collect it.
Be aware that the kindest, gentlest dog may whip around and reflexively bite if you hit it with a cattle prod, and in most courts, far from prosecuting the dog and owner for your bite, you're likely to be prosecuted for animal cruelty and the dog will be considered "justifiably provoked", regardless of if it was in your yard or not. In any case, it will fix nothing and can only make things worse.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

Chickens are property and property can/should be defended. So maybe not the pellet gun, but if it is on somebody property the yes it can get shot.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

We have had a pair of dogs come (onto our yard, and brake into our barn) and kill some of our flock, then growl at us.... we shot them. I am not saying to start WWIII but let them know that they could be down a dog if it happens again.

 

[cmom]

It's not pretty but it works.
View attachment 2566505

A coyote that paid a visit last night out by the outer coops.

Last night something came in contact with the electric wires. I was sound asleep and it woke me. My house isn't that close to the outer coops but I heard something test the electric wires last night.

 

[SurferchickinSB]

Catch the dogs next time they go over on your property and paint a bulls eye on there sides, the neighbor will get the message!

Lol!

 

[JacinLarkwell]

We have had a pair of dogs come (onto our yard, and brake into our barn) and kill some of our flock, then growl at us.... we shot them. I am not saying to start WWIII but let them know that they could be down a dog if it happens again.

Chickens are property and property can/should be defended. So maybe not the pellet gun, but if it is on somebody property the yes it can get shot.

The idea though is to try and be peaceful and come to a solution. Not everyone is going to be fine you shot their dog, even if it was being a menace. If you can talk to them peacefully and convince then to try harder to keep the dogs in, it's better than having neighbor's mad at you

 

[cmom]

I would use a paintball, but first I would contact the owners so then if their dog shows up home with a paintball mark on it they have been warned. I'm not advocating starting a war with your neighbors and I don't know if it's legal to use a paintball but that is what I would do and take pictures.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

I would use a paintball, but first I would contact the owners so then if their dog shows up home with a paintball mark on it they have been warned. I'm not advocating starting a war with your neighbors and I don't know if it's legal to use a paintball but that is what I would do and take pictures.

Yes give them a warning, then make good on it if they don't listen.

 

[Lady Clucks-a-Lot]

I had a similar kind of situation, which is when our neighbor's dog (he was pretty big) got over from a part of the fence that's missing wire (it was covered by the blue berry tree our neighbors grew, so nobody really noticed that there's a hole, also since it's at the end of the fence where's there's some bushes growing) to our yard. He sniffed around and he just pooped a giant poop under the tree. But thank goodness he didn't attack any of our chickens. At first, I felt kind of unfair because their dog got on OUR land, but than, just a few days later, two of our chickens got over the fence and into the neighbor's yard (they do that a lot, but mostly on our other neighbor, those two chicken, well, mainly Biggie, my california white, surely made me say sorry a lot) so now I don't talk about my chickens getting to other people's yard. But I just can't keep them in.