My own dog - I feel betrayed!

[Sjisty]

Some of y'all may have read my post yesterday about my injured hen. I found her in the back yard with multiple deep and shallow wounds. My mind told me "dog" but my heart refused to believe it. Well, today I caught my dog chasing (and catching) one of my cockerels. I ran out there before there was any damage except for a few missing feathers. While I was calming down the one little roo, Rusty went after another one!

I feel so betrayed! We got Rusty (Australian Shepherd) about three months ago. We have another Aussie who is 14+ years old and is wonderful with the chickens, to the point that she and the chickens all cuddle up together when its cold. Rusty has been good as gold with the chickens, but all of a sudden he is going after them.

I have no way to keep him separate. My chickens free range in the back yard where the dogs live. It looks like Rusty is going to find a new home real soon.

 

[Bleenie]

That's too bad

Have you tried any discipline methods? I had a rescue Rottweiler that chased the chickens but HATED the hose. She got sprayed everytime she did it or even acted like she was gonna. She completely stopped after a few days.

My current dog(also a rottie) chased the chickens too but thankfully never hurt or killed any but I still tried methods of breaking her of it.. one day I had to catch 2 roosters that were out and she lunged between my legs and nearly got ones head.. in my rush to stand up and tell her no i almost fell and accidentally hit her really hard in the head...

she didn't do it again after that. I felt horrible and after about an hour gave her lotsa lovins.. she didn't get any other punishment though.. i felt too horrible!! (and no i am not saying you should beat the dog! lol)

I hope you can break him of it & Soon!

 

[CMV]

So sorry. It's tough to be proven wrong about an animal you thought you could trust. I hope your hen makes it.

 

[PuppyBantamCochin]

I know how you feel...I had a pair of meat rabbits I had just bought and I had them out in their run when ''my'' lab mix got out, knocked the thing over and killed one of the rabbits.

I was so mad at her. It really went downhill from there. She killed a couple of our chicks, too. And I am err was? a dog lover, but over the past year, so many of my chickens have been killed by dogs that I'm not sure I like dogs anymore!

We still have this girl, although I think I can say she's ''no longer mine.'' I really was disappointed in her.
I hope you find your dog a good home.

F.V.

 

[zazouse]

Sorry for your loss, i have an aussie and she herds but does not hurt the birds here,however years ago i had another aussie that didn't herd and didn't seem to be intrested in the birds here at all even slep with the chickens.

Well i started missing a bird here and there and could never find a trace of them which is something that never happens with all my LGD around, to make a long story short it was the aussie taking them and eating them in the hay bales, caught him red handed, couldn't break him of killing and eating them because i could not catch him in the act, i had to put him down as he was not a suitable pet for a family IMO.

You may be able to break it or not, if not the dog will most likely keep killing them behind your back,i learned the hard way that Aussies can be very sneeky

 

[sheila3935]

I use to have a white german shepherd. Sadly she passed a few years ago. She was the sweetest thing in the world would let kids do anything to her was gentle with our chihuahua but... my sons brought home 2 chicks and a duck one easter. Not knowing how to care for them soon the chicks died but the duck grew when warm weather came we fixed her a little pen by the shed. One morning I went out to feed her and didnt see her then I noticed the pen had been moved. Went looking for her and found our Nikki having a duck dinner. I dont trust any of my dogs around my chickens and ducks.

 

[nzpouter]

what kind of training have you done in that 3 months?

 

[Sjisty]

The usual obedience training - sit, stay, down, walking on a leash, etc. I introduced him to the chickens and he has been fine until yesterday. We had a problem a couple of weeks ago with a neighbor's dogs killing some of our chickens. I wonder if seeing them made him think it was okay.

 

[cmom]

I wonder if you can break him maybe by using an electrical collar. When you are there and you let the birds out into the yard and see him going after a bird, give him a shock. My brother did this and it worked for him.

 

[nzpouter]

Quote:
that'll do it.. chasing, running, loud prey noises... usually a good trigger.