My new future chicken guard dog

[centrarchid]

I just want to bring a recent experience here to inform you all of the possible dangers.

We just had our 7 year old boxer/pit mix kill two of our chickens after ten months of NO problems whatsoever. We were totally comfortable with the situation and she killed two of our babies in front of my husband before he could even react.

It's a serious shock, but looking at it realistically, we did not train her in any way. We didn't see the need because after watching her closely with them for a couple of months and her not even reacting in any way to them, we thought we were safe. Apparently not. She will never be trusted around the chickens again.

To provide balance our 4 year-old male German Pointer (bird dog) was acquired and trained to be a poultry guardian. He is having a little trouble trying to catch a raccoon making incursions near a neighbors flock but is otherwise doing very well. He is mentally stable and predicable in part owing to the experience he, the birds, and I accrued.


The dangers are well known but losses due to other causes would dwarf the losses you experienced when birds are kept free-range.

Too much emphasis on the negative without effort to control problems makes even less experienced fearful of having dogs around poultry.

 

[chicksurreal]

To provide balance our 4 year-old male German Pointer (bird dog) was acquired and trained to be a poultry guardian. He is having a little trouble trying to catch a raccoon making incursions near a neighbors flock but is otherwise doing very well. He is mentally stable and predicable in part owing to the experience he, the birds, and I accrued.


The dangers are well known but losses due to other causes would dwarf the losses you experienced when birds are kept free-range.

Too much emphasis on the negative without effort to control problems makes even less experienced fearful of having dogs around poultry.

I still totally believe that dogs are a huge help in keeping predators at bay and should be used, I just wanted to say that not training them is a bad idea.

This dog is 7 years old and has a history of killing anything small, like rabbits, squirrels, cats etc. that she can get her jaws on, I think it's her nature to do so and am not sure that she would ever be able to be trusted to guard a flock even if we did try to train her.

I don't blame her, I blame myself for thinking that she had just randomly changed her behavior towards small animals without us doing anything to train her. After ten months of her being with them every day, it was a great shock to have her do this, and I wish I'd at least been actively training her with them this whole time, it might have been different if I had, but now she sees them as prey and I am not sure I can change that.

We are looking for some pups to train, though. I do want to have flock guardians, with the predator situation out here we need them.

 

[Melissa F]

Ruger reminds me a lot of our dog, True. He's a year old 1/2 golden retriever, 1/4 lab and 1/4 heeler. So being both a bird dog and a herding dog has been challenging. Last week I didn't lock the quail coop correctly and they got out- he killed 4 of them. It really urged me to take it up a notch with the chicken training. We have ours in either the chicken tractor or a large coop and run, but I know a little chicken wire isn't too hard for him to get through. I've been taking him with me every time I feed and check on the birds and have been teaching him to lay down next to the coop. Our last dog was 100% lab and at that time we had free ranging chickens and never had a single problem. Twice my husband had to shoot an unruly rooster, and as soon as the bird went down the dog ran over and retrieved it- I had worried that it would make him want to go after a live one, but he never did. Gives me hope for this dog!

 

[donrae]

Just now reading about last weeks issue with Ruger..I'm so sorry. We went through a very similar incicdent with Blaze (the back dog in the avatar) when he was just a little older. Family thought he would be fine left out with the birds, came home and had several dead pullets, all in the 2-3 month age range...and of course the eye candy breeds I'd bought. DH wanted to put the dog down, but Sugar Monkey and I advocated for him. Honestly, he was just a pup and it was out lapse in judgement leaving him unsupervised. I worked with him quite a bit and he never again killed a bird. That whole "tasting blood and becoming a killer" thing is hogwash. Ruger will be a good dog, he just needs to grow up. I also forget how much time puppies take! And when you get one that's "born broke", like your last dog sounds to have been, it makes the new pup harder to adjust to.

 

[tridentk9]

So I'm having to rethink my training methods....my Eve is apparently partially deaf and can't hear normal voice tones :/   I usually use a combo of voice and hand signals, and she's picked right up on those commands, but we were still having trouble with the "come" command......yeah, don't think she could hear me! She can hear a whistle, though, so I'll work on using that as a come/watch me cue, and go from there. It's kind of weird feeling she's not been hearing all the verbal praise I've given her. I've never had a hearing impaired animal, so this will be an adventure!

I'm scheduling a vet appt today to discuss her overall health. I'd been open to considering breeding her in the future, but not now, I'll be scheduling a spay appt also. My interwebz research says deafness can be linked to eye abnormalities also, and she's had uneven pupils at times, so I figure we should get a baseline with the vet in case of further issues. 

Isn't Eve a double merle? Yes, eye and hearing problems frequently go together. Well known in double merles. Sorry- I'm gonna ramble a bit here. The best way to test hearing is a BAER test. Needs specialized equipment. If Eve is a double merle, breeding is not recommended. A great place for Dane info is the Chromadane website. She's a Dane person into genetics and health stuff. You can make a vibration collar from a cheap remote control car. http://www.deafdogs.org/resources/vibracollar.php

 

[centrarchid]

Isn't Eve a double merle? Yes, eye and hearing problems frequently go together. Well known in double merles. Sorry- I'm gonna ramble a bit here. The best way to test hearing is a BAER test. Needs specialized equipment. If Eve is a double merle, breeding is not recommended. A great place for Dane info is the Chromadane website. She's a Dane person into genetics and health stuff. You can make a vibration collar from a cheap remote control car. http://www.deafdogs.org/resources/vibracollar.php

Donrae already covered your ramble. The other information is good.

 

[bobbi-j]

Just now reading about last weeks issue with Ruger..I'm so sorry. We went through a very similar incicdent with Blaze (the back dog in the avatar) when he was just a little older. Family thought he would be fine left out with the birds, came home and had several dead pullets, all in the 2-3 month age range...and of course the eye candy breeds I'd bought. DH wanted to put the dog down, but Sugar Monkey and I advocated for him. Honestly, he was just a pup and it was out lapse in judgement leaving him unsupervised. I worked with him quite a bit and he never again killed a bird. That whole "tasting blood and becoming a killer" thing is hogwash. Ruger will be a good dog, he just needs to grow up. I also forget how much time puppies take! And when you get one that's "born broke", like your last dog sounds to have been, it makes the new pup harder to adjust to. 

I agree with the whole "once they taste blood" thing. I believe it's more of a "once they find out how much fun chickens are" thing, and training can help with that. DH let the Rangers out Wed. and yesterday, closely supervising and did't have a problem, but it will be a long time before Ruger is trusted with those type of birds agaiin. Interestingly, we do still leave the layers and the orphans loose all day, home or not, and have had no trouble there. It makes me wonder if it was maybe an issue at the feeder as Centrarchid mentioned could happen. DH said he was close to putting Ruger down, too, but I think it was his frustration speaking, and the fact that I told him the dog doesn't get punished for his lapse in judgement. Oh well, it's done and over with now, and he did alert DH to the family of coons lurking around so that problem could be eliminated. He gets points for that, anyway. Both flocks will remain locked up this weekend as we are having company, and there will be extra dogs visiting.

 

[donrae]

Isn't Eve a double merle? Yes, eye and hearing problems frequently go together. Well known in double merles. Sorry- I'm gonna ramble a bit here. The best way to test hearing is a BAER test. Needs specialized equipment. If Eve is a double merle, breeding is not recommended. A great place for Dane info is the Chromadane website. She's a Dane person into genetics and health stuff. You can make a vibration collar from a cheap remote control car. http://www.deafdogs.org/resources/vibracollar.php

Eve's getting scheduled for a spay, finally convenienced my honey she shouldn't be bred. Plus, where on earth would we house a litter of Great Dane puppies? We have less than a thousand feet for four people and two large dogs already....no puppy space here, even if she were good genetic material.

I don't need the BAER test, I've been with this dog pretty much 24/7 for 6 months and know what she can hear....plus, I'm in Smalltown USA and equipment not available.....and no point, to me, since she's not being bred. We've worked out a decent training method with whistling, but it's still funny to see her get surprised when, to her, you just appear out of nowhere

 

[tridentk9]

I was wondering? astonished? amused? surprised? that your vet said her hearing was OK without a BAER test. Even the specialists can't always tell if hearing is OK and bilateral. DRAT aphasia sucks. The right word is lost in my brain!

Sheepdog herders have a good system of using whistles. And hunting retrievers. Your commands can be heard better over a distance without the negative connotation from yelling. You picked a good tool for communication. Sigh, but I can't whistle so always needed one on a lanyard.

Doggles ;-) She may need sunglasses. Too cool for school!

ASHGI. Org also has a lot of merle info. Between ASHGI and Chromadane there is a lot of info.
http://www.ashgi.org/home-page/genetics-info/coat-color/white-fright

Enjoy her- she may need some different care but they are worth it. Each dog teaches us something, Eve's job may be to teach you there is always another way.

 

[bobbi-j]

So.... after seeing a picture of a friend's Redbone Coonhound, and looking at other pictures of the breed, I'm fairly convinced that Ruger is at least part coonhound. He doesn't have the giant, floppy ears, but he does have the color, the markings, body shape and size, and feet. And he bays like a hound. He's been good with the chickens lately, but hasn't really had a chance to mess up - he has not been left home alone out of his kennel when they've been free ranging. He doesn't really show excessive interest in them, though, and will come away from them when I call. He does seem eager to please. There is hope. I wonder, though, how good coonhound is at pheasant hunting? (We have plenty of coons here, but I've read that Redbones are also used to hunt bear and mountain lions. We have a shortage of both out here on the prairie. I'm just fine with that.)