If a dog kills once, will he do it again?

[abhaya]

I had a dog who had been fine with chickens for years and lost his mind he killed 12 chickes in the space of an hour just killed them and left them lay. He got rehomed I have been told by several farmers once a dog has the taste of blood you can never trust them around livestock again.

 

[centrarchid]

I have had dogs that killed chickens initially but where broke of habit and could be trusted to guard thereafter. One was later trained to help with catching and driving birds without causing feather loss. Even the crazy dogs can be trained but patience and loss of a few more birds in process to be expected.

A struggling chicken not likely to even scratch a dogs face. If damage to dog related to take of chickens, dig dog chase birds threw briars? Otherwise possibility as indicated earlier, dog not perp.

 

[Judy]

I also had a dog that killed a chicken (trying to play with it, did not eat it) who then roamed free among the chickens which keeps predators away. Did not take a lot of training to accomplish this. I would suspect it was not the dog who killed the chicken.

 

[buckaroo's wife]

After reading these posts, I am guessing there is a definite possibility that the dog may not have done it....any theories on what might have? Like was mentioned earlier, most predators take the head, not leave it...although I know there is not a chance of figuring this out 100%. All I know is: dog was out, chicken dead, dog scratched up. I assumed guilt. Upon further inspection this morning, one of the other hens was injured as well, although she is still walking and talking. I had her secluded in the barn with food/water/vitamins.

 

[nzpouter]

buckaroo's wife :

Sure enough, the dog's face is covered in scratches and peck marks.

I don't understand this as he's ALWAYS been fine around them (we've had the chickens for 8 months)....what gives? And now that he's done this one, will he do it again?? He's an escape artist, and hard to contain. Usually just gets out and go to lay on the backporch....but I DO NOT want to lose another chicken.

a chicken is hardly capable of inflicting any scratch marks on a dog's face.... might need to double check around your property just to be sure...​

 

[jerseygirl1]

Truthfully, I never leave the dogs unattended with the chickens. I know that with your dog, it was an accident, but this is the only known foolproof way of keeping the dog from killing chickens. My GSD would never hurt one of m ine, BUT I never give him the chance either.

 

[buckaroo's wife]

Our dogs are never left unattended with our chickens either. This just happened to be a freak day when he got out and we weren't home. Not much I can do there.

 

[bigshoes213]

My border collie mix has killed one of my chickens that came into our yard and one of my husband's grandfathers chickens. He lives next door. My chickens has a huge pasture to free range in back behind my house outside of our fenced in yard. He is an escape artist too but we think we have that problem solved. Blaze has also attacked my pygmy goat that squeezed through the bottom of our gate when she was younger. He doesnt try to get into their areas just he used to escape every single time we went to my husbands grandparents next door because we were there. I try to be super diligent about checking gates and locks on the gates. My great pyrenees mix (who gets locked in the chicken pen often because he is slow to come out when i leave and is great with the chickens) and my border collie mix would attack anything that came in to the yard. They are extremely protective of our yard.

I would keep a close eye on your bc since you arent sure whether he attacked the hen or something else. But even if the dog did attack I think there should be someway of them coexisting on the same property. I love my hens but i would not trade anything for my bc.

 

[buckaroo's wife]

Thanks BigShoes - I agree with you that there is a way everyone can co-exist peacefully on our place. Obviously we are just going to have to do something different with the dog...

 

[Mountain Man Jim]

We have had one issue with one of the dogs when she was a puppy. We redoubled our training efforts with dog and chickens. Everything has been fine for years.

I've got to believe you can train a Border Collie to do just about anything including be behaved around the chickens. I think it would behoove you to train all of the dogs to ignore the chickens, especially for the days when someone makes a mistake and lets the dogs out. You may also find that it's useful to keep the dogs out with the chickens to prevent predator attacks like we do.

Jim