My puppy is my peeps new predator!

[igorsMistress]

Labs are natural born birders. They will flush birds and, lacking a hunting partner, will chase ground dwelling birds to death.

Learn how to control your dog with basic obedience BEFORE you use a shock collar. IE you don't call your dog to you and then punish her, and you absolutely MUST give lots of praise when she does good things. Especially when you see her do them without being told. Leash training, all the basics are necessary first. Then graduate to the more difficult part of learning that those birds are off limits no matter what.

Calm consistency is crucial in training a dog for anything.

Good luck to you!

 

[TheRusticRebel]

Our dog ( half lab half rott) was 3 years old when we first got chickens. They both had full run of the yard. Anytime he got close to looking crossways at them. We would scold him. Now he can be right in the middle of the flock and not seem to care. He realized they were part of our pack and not to be harmed.


He did have a fondness of their poop...so they arent totally free range anymore.

Just be firm and consistent and try to catch the behavior right as its happening. Every time.

 

[ValerieJ]

Did you take her to puppy obedience classes or to adult obedience classes? Puppies are like 2 year old kids...short attention span and the urge to play with everything. Any good manners you must teach. Any restraint (as with chickens) you must teach. You should begin by teaching sit, stay, come. The basics. Then when the basics are down, you sit with the dog in the midst of the chickens. If the dog whines or shows undue interest in them (leaning toward them, whining, or that HARD STARE that says "I want to mess that thing up" you give a shove or jerk of the leash or shake...something to break the dog out of his focused intent to pursue...saying some sound like SHHHHT! to help bring the dog's attention back to you. You have to do that a lot, with some dogs. Others get it quicker.
But if you haven't trained in an obedience class and the dog is not reliable on things like stay, drop it, or come...then you aren't going to have much luck.

Completely agree with Eggscaping. I think a good obedience class will help you and your dog communicate better.

 

[Ljc01]

We have a 6 year old rescue beagle who is almost perfect in every way. We adopted him 5 months ago and have been able to train him to come, stay, walk off lease and leave the cats alone, but I have not been able to train him to leave the chickens alone.
We have decided that a good fence between the dog and chickens was the best idea.

 

[archeryrob]

Beagles are very stubborn dogs and take a lot of reinforcement to train. We have had beagles in the past for rabbit hunting and labs for waterfowl and labs train 5x easier.

Beagles are hounds and drive to chase things and howl. Its in their nature and hard for them to stop. If they are from hunting stock it twice as bad.

 

[Sooner Magnolia]

I got a rescue dog heeler/border collie mix who was 2 years old. First day at home, she tried chasing my chickens through the coop fence. Her obedience training was already in place, but she wasn't fully bonded to us yet. The next day, she caught one that I hadn't realized had roosted in a tree overnight. The hen survived, but I realized that to keep our sweet girl, I had to get serious.

We got a shock collar that also beeped so we had that option. I watched her, and when she lunged or leaned forward at the chickens and her ears perked up, she got a zap. Didn't yell or anything, in fact I didn't want her to see the connection between me and the shock, so I kind of hid the second time when she was offleash. It literally only took 2 shocks and she decided that "chickens hurt" and walks around them when they are free ranging, even using a longer route to the porch to avoid them if I call her.

It has been 4 years and she has never chased a chicken since those 2 shocks....of course she is very smart, but I feel the couple of small zaps have saved us all a lot of pain.

We now have a new 11 week old heeler. She's interested in my 6 week old chicks and is getting corrected when she seems too interested in them. Sprayed with the hose a couple of times when she hasn't quit soon enough. I don't want to have to dig out the collar, but I will if I have to. I definitely won't let her around them until I'm sure she has the message that they are off limits. Wishing us both luck!

 

[Sooner Magnolia]

Better picture of my precious girls

 

[Sooner Magnolia]

For the majority of the time, the chickens r in their run because we have a serious fox problem here (lost a chicken 2 months ago from it, and caught it in action attempting to go after the rest).... We let the peeps out about 3-4times a week around 5pm

Might also consider a low voltage electric fence around the run to deter fox and dog alike. I haven't used one, but have heard people have luck with them. We have a put bull who lives a couple of places over and killed at least 3 of my previous flock ( that's why my new chickens are so young). My son saw him a few nights ago on the road in front of our house. We're constructing a new coop and run, so I may have to do that as well.

 

[ajackalope]

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

 

[ajackalope]

It might take a while but teach her "leave it". Both breeds of her mix are very smart. Start teaching her with a toy. Put it on the ground and when she goes for it step in front of her and tell her to leave it. I had an inbred yellow lab that went after everything and this worked but I had to re teach everything I wanted him to not touch.