My (beloved) dog ate a second chicken yesterday.......

[chicksbestfriend]

Savingdogs,
I sure empathize with your situation. We had a Jack Russell Terrier that had killed a dozen of our chickens over a 5 year period. It was always my favorite ones that she would kill, I would be so devestated upon returning home from work to see one of my precious girls laying dead next to her dog house. We tried everything imaginable to break her chicken killing habit, but as you can see, losing at least a dozen to her, we failed to stop the behavior. I tried tying the chicken around her neck, closing off her dog house with a dead chicken inside, neither of them working. We had the dog on a run so that she could claim her own territory and for the most part, the chickens wouldnt go into her territory, the JR would slip through her collar and it would be open game from there. We continued to move her further away from the chickens, we have 1 acre, and at last we thought the problem was solved, hadnt seen any dead chickens for awhile. We experienced a shocking event last month, where one of our pitbulls attacked the JR over food left over in her bowl. After talking to my mother in law (who is 83) who also resides in a cottage on our property, she told me how she would watch the JR save food in bowl to lure the chickens close to her and then she would attack them! I had no idea that my MIL knew this was happening til after the JR got attacked, and unfortunately, her chicken hunting behavior got her killed by the pitbull. Had I known that she was baiting the chickens with her food, maybe I could of prevented the killings.............................

 

[shareverwonder]

Quote:
What happened to the pit bull? My fiance had a pit bull 1 year before we met (he found it in the woods at a park when it was about a year old and took it home) We have been together for two years and moved in together last December. This spring we got chickens. The dog has killed two of them when they were still pretty young (about a month old). The dog did not eat them, he just mauled them and left them to die. About 2 months ago the dog got out of the house when the chickens were outside and he grabbed the rooster, ran through the yard with the roo in his mouth and was starting to maul it. We caught him pretty quick and he dropped the roo. We could not let the dog out if the chickens were out and visa versa. This dog killed two racoons and two cats as well this summer.
The dog attacked my fiance this past week and had to be put down. I just don't think dogs and chickens go good together.

 

[savingdogs]

They are prey-predator, so shareeverywonder I think I have to agree with you.

I just hope I can work it out that we can have both, with diligence!

I love pit bulls, but I think as a breed they would tend to have more prey drive and not be the dog of choice around chickens. That being said, I'm sure BYC-ers could find zillions of pit bulls who are great with chickens. Pit bulls are not all the same, just like any other breed.
In my fostering endeavors, I've found just about anything with the word "terrier" at the end is too interested in the poultry. Some of the bird dogs were too, a pointer especially. And don't get me wrong, I don't mean after years of training. I just mean naturally, the way the dogs arrived at our home, probably for the most part unexposed to livestock. We live next to Portland, Oregon on a mountaintop, so we are near the big city but live in the country and the dogs come from the pound in "town".

My own five vary by breed (golden, BC, ridgeback and a ridgeback/dobie) and only the Karelian Bear dog is a chicken killer. While the others were interested at first, over time the chickens got boring and me scolding them for showing too much interest did the trick. I no longer have her, but I did own a dog that was boxer/pit who initially wanted to chase/eat the chickens, but after a year of coexisting and training, left them completely alone.That dog has a high desire to please however, whereas my bear dog has little to none and she was never able to eat one when she was still showing interest like Bandit did, nor did she hunt on her own like Bandit will. In my group, the border collie and the golden retriever are the two who are the best, but they have extremely protective and gentle personalities overall.

So in my experience, dogs are individuals about their ability to live with chickens.

I didn't find the deer netting yet but I'm getting a reprieve.....it is raining heavily here today so everyone is huddled indoors (dogs and chickens included) except those pesky EEs. But just to make me feel bad about their missing sister, one layed a beautiful pink (first)egg yesterday!

 

[shareverwonder]

Savingdogs -- Congrats on the egg! There will be no more dogs for us, so our chickens are safe and sound unless something else comes into our yard. We have seen racoons and a couple of foxes and hawks.
Our birds stay pretty close to home and only travel the woods up to the creek which is still in eye range.
Pit bulls are like anything else - some good, some bad.

 

[savingdogs]

Well I was hoping for blue or green but pink does look striking next to those brown and white ones I'm already getting...............
Unfortunately I'll never know what the fourth EE 's eggs were going to look like. Bandit is still getting the silent treatment and scowls from me.....I knew she was just being herself but that I'm still "cross" at her is an understatement.

 

[IdealisticRoo]

I know this is an older post, but I am going to offer this up as an option!

I DO NOT CONDONE NOR HAVE I DONE THIS!

I have a cousin in another state who lives on a farm, they have chickens and dogs. Not a chicken lover, a farmer, just to clarify. When I want to talk chickens, the reply is "what kind of chickens? The kind that lay eggs!" So not pet chickens, but practical we-need-fresh-eggs chickens.

They had a dog who had a chicken-killing habit. So, to break him of the habit, they put an elizabethan collar (the thing the vet gives you with a surgery so you dog won't lick the stitches out) around the dogs neck and then tied a dead chicken ( one of the ones he killed) around his neck. The collar prevented him from removing said chicken. The dog could eat and drink normally, but was NOT happy!

The moral is that the dog no longer chases or even looks at chickens! He runs the other way!

Not sure this is humane, but if my dog started killing chickens, I would have a REALLY hard time putting him down! This MIGHT be an alternative after ALL other preventative methods have been exhausted!

 

[ellieroo]

Quote:
Very good idea I think Wonder if one of the softer collars would work?? We had a dog who killed chickens put up a fence around the house dog had 1/2 acre yard but if a chicken flew over it was a gone bird.

 

[savingdogs]

I have heard of this method before, but without the E-collar. I work for a vet so I know exactly what you are describing and have a few of those even. I always wondered (without an e-collar) what would keep a dog from just eating a chicken that was tied around its neck? That sounded like a reward. Now I see how it could work.

As a dog trainer however, I wonder about the whole cause-and-effect thing here. Dogs don't usually understand punishment for things that happened awhile back, they can't reason like people. I have heard of this method working, but since I truly believe dogs should understand their punishment, I don't think I would choose this way.

By the way, we have been working with Bandit and regarding the chickens she will "leave it" when we are supervising, at least. So we are making progress but I'll still never really trust her! She does seem to understand that we don't want her to put the chickens in her mouth.

 

[Judy]

Quote:
My experience is quite similar to this, though I only lost one chicken to dogs. There is a JR here, too, along with a lab mix and an unknown (maybe chihuahua/dachsund and something else.) There was also a retriever mix who was 17 years old and the easiest of all to train -- but then she was always so easy to train to do anything; sometimes I thought she spoke English.

 

[ozark hen]

A woman at church last Sunday told me she tied a dead chicken around her dog's neck and scolded him for killing it for several days. She said he never killed another one. I have not (Thank God) had this problem as yet and don't know if this really works. she claimed it did. Today I caught my six month old HUGE pup with a silkie in his mouth running throught the fields. After screaming No at him , he dropped it and although I thought it was dead, it got up and ran around. I caught it and it had not damage. I hope and pray my pup never kills one just "playing" with it.