Need Good Ol' Chicken Dog

[Mutt Farm]

In this thread, nothing has failed except owners who expected way too much from a dog, wanted an immediate cure, failed to invest time and effort into actually training a dog to know what is expected or learning how to accomplish that. I'm sorry, but as a certified trainer of dogs and trainer of humans to train dogs, you have another false conception. Dogs don't "know they did wrong and are suffering consequences". That ignorant 50's-60's point of view is held by folks that shoot, dump and beat dogs if they don't act right. Dogs are completely incapable of forethought, reason,or revenge. I don't expect to change your mind. Don't want to. Dig on into what was ok 40 years ago before folks sought to understand animal behavior and learning. Don't listen to me. I ask you to research.

 

[baah]

I answer this question all the time from newer younger farm owners & always give the same answer: an LGD is your answer but it is NOT a quick fix answer. LGDs have centuries of genetic breeding to guard livestock (that includes chickens). Pound puppies do not. Labs have been bred to retrieve fowl, not guard them. Never accept someone else's "problem dog" thinking you can train it to guard your chickens. You can't. Of course there will be exceptions to every rule but overwhelmingly LGDs have been bred for a purpose & that purpose it to guard flock animals when a shepherd can't be there. Start with a puppy & don't think you can make it your pet & your livestock guardian at the same time. This means the dog never darkens the door of your house but stays & lives with the animals for whom it will provide protection. This can be very hard to do when the dog is a small puppy but you should do a LOT of reading on LGDs and raising them before purchasing one. Once you have a mature LGD that has been raised with your livestock of choice, you will not have any more predator problems. Your LGD is a 24/7 protector against fox, raccoons, feral cats, snakes, even predators from the air like hawks & owls. My LGDs always have an eye towards the sky during the day when the chickens are foraging. The reason an LGD is not a quick fix answer is that it takes these marvelous dogs from 18mos-2yrs to full mature into the magnificent guardians that they are. Up until that time it takes a large amount of supervision, patience & correction FROM YOU to keep them from goofing around with your small livestock & inadvertently injuring or even killing them. We generally put our young dogs with our cows if they are going to be unsupervised b/c there isn't much they can do to harm them; however, if the end goal is to guard chickens, it's best to figure out a way to put the pup in proximity to them without endangering them. Once again, read voraciously about LGDs, training and which breeds have what propensities. Everyone has their favorites. Mine is the Akbash, an amazing Turkish breed; but people love Pyrs, Anatolians, Maremmas, etc. Best of luck!

 

[baah]

Omigosh. My 6 yr old female Akbash guards EVERYTHING in the field with her & we are Old MacDonald's farm with ducks, chickens, sheep, goats, cows, a llama, etc. She alerts on ANYTHING that's not supposed to be in her area: people walking outside the fence, a car that passes too slowly (just looking at the animals), buzzards or hawks circling overhead, stray dogs or even when our barn cats go where they are not usually seen, she's up & running to check it out. When it's lambing, kidding or calving time she stays a respectable distance away from the mother who's birthing & keeps all other animals away until baby is on it's feet & she's taken care of the afterbirth. She was raised in & among all these animals & they are HERS. There is no shortcut to training these dogs. What you put into them as puppies is what you will get back from them as adults.

 

[ROLIN FARMS]

You said it all part pyrameese get a purbreed GP and raise it mext to the chickens and after you work with it on basic commands introduce it to the chickens and within a few weeks they will be bonded you don't have to pay a high price for one run adds in news papers and on craigs list for full blooded pups for livestock dog and you can pick up one for 75.00 - 150.00 without papers papers don't mean anything for a working dog buy one from a working family not a pet breeder and go to animal swap meets lots of times they will have some pups there and talk to them about what the parents guard and how the pups are raised and if you think they are asking to much you can often offer them less the most they can do is say no give them your phone number lots of times if the meet is getting late or they want to leave several times they will call you and offer the dog to you at a discounted price or what you offered so they wont have to take it home I live in Illinois and around here non registered stock will sell from 75.00 to 200.00 depending on the person sometimes they will offer you a runt at a discounted price and with a little work worming and good feed they will turn out to be as big as any of the pups I prefer a laid back and sometimes a little timid pup never buy the biggest and boldest pup they are the alpha dogs and they are usually the hardest to train and always start out with the least expensive chickens for them at first usually you might loose 1 or 2 not from aggressive killing but from playing with them always supervise them the first few months and never leave them alone until they show no sign of wanting to play with them but always work with them on commands that will always make it so much easier when you want to correct them I have 3 GPS and wouldn't have anything else with a little time and training they will protect any animal you own on your property hope this helps you I had to learn most of this myself the hard way trial and ear.

 

[centrarchid]

The prey drive is not bad, rather it needs to be channeled. My dogs have very high prey drive yet do well around poultry. The prey drive can be a mechanism for promoting a dog's interest in the landscape. Aggression we do have as a motivator against coyotes and other dogs. With predators like Red Fox, Raccoons, Opossums, Skunks, Weasels, Mink, snakes, and raptors the dogs treat them as prey and will behave in that manner even when chickens are in the immediate vicinity. The prey drive is what gets dogs out patrolling away from trails chickens use and keeps the exploratory mindset going needed to detect the smaller predators.

 

[island2island]

Yup - it's not the breed, it's the training. You can't just get a dog and think it will learn what to do just by being raised with the chickens. Obviously certain breeds have lower prey drive and older (< 4yrs) dogs tend to be less playful so fewer accidental injuries "I chased and things got out of hand."
Sorry but the OP is just being a lazy owner thinking they can get the dog to do their work of protecting the livestock without putting the work into training the dog.
Even a high prey drive dog can be trained not to kill your livestock but I takes a ton of work - vigilance and correction. We had a whippet coonhound mix (bred by pig hunters) who used to regularly kill the wild chickens where we used to live. After much work when we moved to the mainland, she was quite reliable around our freeranging poultry but still would occasionally chase which we would quickly and firmly reprimand. We suspect she did kill one turkey but it was out of our sight and he tended to be an aggressive bird. That kind of dog can be your pet around the chickens safely but for one to be left with the animals alone, you need a well trained low prey drive breed (often the big lazy dog type).
It's like expecting a 6 year old to clean the kitchen without supervision or direction. Chances are nothing will get cleaned but you will find them sitting on the floor eating the Oreos

 

[ConPollos]

In this thread, nothing has failed except  owners who expected way too much from a dog, wanted an immediate cure, failed to invest time and effort into actually training a dog to know what is expected or learning how to accomplish that. I'm sorry, but as a certified trainer of dogs and trainer of humans to train dogs, you have another false conception. Dogs don't "know they did wrong and are suffering consequences".  That ignorant 50's-60's point of view is held by folks that shoot, dump and beat dogs if they don't act right. Dogs are completely incapable of forethought, reason,or revenge. I don't expect to change your mind. Don't want to. Dig on into what was ok 40 years ago before folks sought to understand animal behavior and learning. Don't listen to me. I ask you to research.   

You're wrong. And I am cerainly not ignorant, would never dump or be cruel to a dog, I rescue dumped dogs and keep them all their lives. Dogs know and understand a whole lot more than you think. And scientists have finally proven what every five year old child can tell you: Dogs have emotions like we do, in fact they are more deeply feeling and sensitive than most people.

 

[ConPollos]

Yup - it's not the breed, it's the training. You can't just get a dog and think it will learn what to do just by being raised with the chickens. Obviously certain breeds have lower prey drive and older (< 4yrs) dogs tend to be less playful so fewer accidental injuries "I chased and things got out of hand."
Sorry but the OP is just being a lazy owner thinking they can get the dog to do their work of protecting the livestock without putting the work into training the dog.
Even a high prey drive dog can be trained not to kill your livestock but I takes a ton of work - vigilance and correction. We had a whippet coonhound mix (bred by pig hunters) who used to regularly kill the wild chickens where we used to live. After much work when we moved to the mainland, she was quite reliable around our freeranging poultry but still would occasionally chase which we would quickly and firmly reprimand. We suspect she did kill one turkey but it was out of our sight and he tended to be an aggressive bird. That kind of dog can be your pet around the chickens safely but for one to be left with the animals alone, you need a well trained low prey drive breed (often the big lazy dog type).
It's like expecting a 6 year old to clean the kitchen without supervision or direction. Chances are nothing will get cleaned but you will find them sitting on the floor eating the Oreos

Well said. And just like human kids and adults, who will sometimes do wrong when nobody else is around to see it, even a well trained dog will sneak and do something it knows is against then rules when you're not around.

 

[centrarchid]

Well said. And just like human kids and adults, who will sometimes do wrong when nobody else is around to see it, even a well trained dog will sneak and do something it knows is against then rules when you're not around.

Then not yet trained. More work to be done.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

Hanging a dead chicken around a dog's neck does work in a lot of cases. In every case? No, but usually. I don't see how it is a myth when it works most of the time.

I am really enjoying this thread, wish the OP would post again.