Introducing chickens to other pets.......

[BoltonChicken]

Our bichon is great; she just sniffs the chicks and is very gentle.

Just as an aside, did you know that some breeds of bichon (notably the Havanese) were bred to herd chickens? I am trying to figure out
how to train mine to do this. At first he was excited by them, but now just sits on his haunches and watches them for long periods of time.
He never barks or charges, just watches quietly. Soon he will be going into the run with me. On a leash of course. We'll see how that works out.

Old timers (yes, older than me) tell me that a grown chicken can and will whip any cat. It only takes once and the cat is trained forever.
We'll see how that works out too.

 

[bawkbawkbawk]

Bolton - that's really interesting! I have a Coton de Tulear, which is related to the Bichon/Havanese. She's actually kind of afraid of the chickens (and, come to think of it, pretty much everything else...)

 

[ajay]

Good advice on giving the dog a treat near the coop. I will try that.

Our pooch has had access to the chickens since day 1 too. He was never pushed away. The brooder was in our house and he could come up and sniff anytime. He just chose not to. Now he wants unrestricted access to be able to bat the chickies around and chase them into a tailspin and that's not going to happen. I don't need him to accidentally hurt one while he is "playing" and they are running around clucking like mad and all stressed out. We tell him nice chickies and easy commands all the time and hold them and let him sniff to his hearts content. He's just a slow learner. lol

 

[BoltonChicken]

I have a Coton de Tulear, which is related to the Bichon/Havanese. She's actually kind of afraid of the chickens (and, come to think of it, pretty much everything else...)

Yep. No doubt these two are related! Fun, aren't they....​

 

[TheJuan-n-Only]

I have a Black Lab/Pit mix and Sheperd/Hound mix and a cat (amongs other pets) and so far so good....The cat wants nothing to do with them (that I found soo weird) the Lab just looks from the far (he is a scary cat! lol) and Bella the Hound mix is by my side at all time and LOOOVEs the baby's. I have to keep an eye on her because he paws at them to make them play with her! hahahaha....She also got very excited around them at the beggining, but I think it was the newness of the situation...she just wanted to play with them!

I first let them all take looks and sniff around the brooder...after a few days I took each bird out and let the dogs/cat smell them out of my hands....now I'm working on having my dogs ingnore them when they are out in the run if I'm not around....so far so good!! Once the birds are bigger I'll let them all out in the yard (one dog at the time) and have the dogs ingnore the birds.....we shall see...either way...they would never be around each other alone!

here are some pics of the "official" intro

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=526008