My puppy is my peeps new predator!

[wildstreak]

A couple times when my kids left the door open momentarily, she has gotten out and catching her is near impossible

Here is your problem. She is not listening. She needs basic obedience as another poster mentioned. She should COME when her name is called with no exceptions. Keep working on her. Try a more formal obedience training class as an option to help you monitor your success. Sometimes trying to train at home it is easy to let a day.. or two days pass without any training being done but just reprimands. She needs consistency and sometimes classes help the owner to achieve that. Just like weightwatchers makes you check in and be accountable for your calories.. a dog training class will make you stick with the training schedule at home

 

[damzilchick]

OK OK I know you are all going to get your panties in a bunch, but it worked!!
I have two grown dogs, mixed and they kept killing my chickens, went from 51 to 31 in a week. When I seen one of them carrying a dead Sultan in his mouth, I came unglued!! I took the dead bird and tied it around the dogs neck and left it there for a week!!! It stunk to high heaven and the other dog would have nothing to do with him. When the weak was over I (throwing up alittle here) carelly with gloves on, because there were maggots on parts of it.....I showed the dog the chicken and yelled at him and walked him over to the chickens hutch and yelled at him again and told him ( "you do this again, and you will get another chicken tied to you") He cowered and left me. He and the other dog do not TOUCH my chickens anymore and its been four years. I heard some one else talk about this training way, and hated to be so harsh, but it WORKED!!! Damnzil Chick P.S. I loveeee my dogs

 

[esavvymom]

We used a shock collar...at the lowest setting even. It only took a couple of times, along with key words. In our case, we said “no birds!” It worked very well. She was left loose in the yard, along with the birds. EXCEPT, we later discovered that our dog mistook what the roosters (who came along later) were doing to the hens, all natural, but to our dog...it looked like the hens were being attacked. We were finding roosters dead in the yard....two over the course of a year, with a third that lay dying. Whatever it was, it only got the roosters....we were baffled. But it wasn’t until I was outside, with birds and dog all around, that I figured it out. A rooster was doing his thing,and the dog went after him. AHHH! Found the culprit. She was protecting the hens, or so she thought. So with some more training, now she just sits in the middle of them with no issue.

 

[Shanny123]

So I have a 7, almost 8 month old puppy, who is half Lab, half German shepherd. She has gotten very bad with our chickens. She used to try to chase them to play, but recently she has really been stalking and hunting them. She crouches low and then pounces. She has removed some feathers and today she even cut the top of one of my amberlink pullets head. She is always outside on a 30ft leash, so she doesn't have full range of the backyard. However, everytime the chickens come close in her proximity, she hunts them. She gets reprimanded harshly and locked in her kennel for a few min everytime she does it, but I am very concerned about my peeps. I love them so much, but don't want any of them to get seriously injured. I'm wondering, can I train her out of this prey drive? Is it hopeless, or is there still time since she is a puppy? View attachment 1840374

Hi, we had a similar situation recently. We bought 4 young hens, already laying, and put the coop in our very large fenced backyard. Our 2 year old female Shepherd mix took to the hens as if they were her babies. She'd lay in the yard and let them walk all around where she lay. She kept her eye on them. When we fed them, she even tried to eat with them. Well, gradually over a few months, she began to sorta chase one of the hens. We'd see her do it and scold loudly! And we'd make her go in the house. We tried keeping her on a leash when she was in the backyard with them. That really frustrated her. One day she slipped through the sliding glass door to the backyard, before we could shut it and she chased that same chicken. She didn't draw blood but she got a mouth of feathers.. and the poor hen was traumatized. We finally saw we needed to take immediate action. So we bought a huge roll of rabbit welded wire and lots of those metal stakes, a foot taller than the wire, so they could go deep in the ground. Hubby made a gate out of wide black PVC pipe and wire and reinforced it with diagonal pieces of wood. It works great. Now everyone is happy! Chickens have half of our backyard, and dog has the other half. The gen recovered from her scare and it's all good!
Thanks for posting your story. You're definitely not alone!

 

[Shanny123]

 

[Shanny123]

View attachment 1843462

Correction: Hubby used a diagonal piece of PVC on the gate for strength. It's lightweight but opens and closes really well.

 

[Helloworld]

Our precious Bitsy has died. Not sure how old she was since we bought her from a feed store with her pal, a Barred Rock. She will be greatly missed!

Oh I am so sorry! I didn’t know her but I know she meant a lot. May she rest in piece too.

 

[Helloworld]

If all else fails, keep the chooks penned, when the dog has to be out, unsupervised.

I can not believe she keeps them out. So small! Mine would be eaten in a day. Sniff I have to supervise.

 

[Helloworld]

Even sneakier - sit in the window with the shock collar and zap her as she even approaches them. So far, it's working with our monster dog.

If you have been doing it a while you can probably just use noise now. Just a thought

 

[DIMBY]

I have 2 bros, half aussie, half border. For the first few months after we got them as puppies, no problem, then some issues began. At the vet clinic, happened to be a retired sheep dog trainer, he took a liking to the boys and offered to come over and train me to train them. Best two hours I have ever spent. He told me patience, and trust the dogs' intelligence and willingness to learn. It takes time, lots of time, and positive reinforcement, LOTS of treats. So, sat with them for an hour or two every day with chickens out. No leashes. Every time they sat still and just watched, Good Boy verbals and treats, but if they started to move towards them, "Leave it!" and brought them back to where I was sitting. More treats. If chickens approached, which they did, treated the pups when they sat but if they budged, Leave it, bring back, then treats. It was over and over and over. For almost two months, I only let my chickens out when I was in the back yard with the pups, or if they pups were in the house. Anyway, we did this training every day for about two months, and then I let them all free together in the yard, but kept very very close eye and if it looked like either of the pups was regressing, then sat with them in the yard and reinforced the training. It was maybe a month or two after that, I felt comfortable enough to trust them - and their training. Now, they are 7 years old, lots of chickens absolutely no problems and in fact those dogs protect the chickens like you can't believe, raccoons are regularly treed. Positive reinforcement, no physical punishment, and lots of treats (buy in bulk, it will save you $$$). Hope this helps!