New Puppy?

[tepchickens]

Any advice on how to socialize our new lab puppy to our flock of 10 chickens? I want him to love my ladies as much as I do.

 

[shmccarthy]

I have a 3 year old lab and I am currently still working on socializing him with my chickens still. He is a little hard headed, but has the classic lab mentality of wanting to help and do well.
What I did was when I got my chickens, 2 years ago I would hold the less fussy chicks in my hands, and let him smell them and look at them. If he did anything else, I would dicipline him. He absolutely hates being yelled at, and just yelling made him realize it was wrong to try and "taste" the chicks. After quite a few days of doing this, he got the message and I could clean the brooder and play with the chicks with him right there. He would be hesitant to come over even, and I would have to invite him to come see the chicks. He would just look in the brooder for a few minutes usually and watch what I was doing, and eventually lay down. I found that was substantial progress. My lab, like I said, is a little hard headed but he means well. We have realized he is extremely smart, and able to understand and follow what we tell him, to an extent, but in return he has 0 common sense. He's the type that walks into doors multiple times until he realizes they don't work that way. Depending on how your lab is, you may have to adjust the pace of the training accordingly. But I have found that even though labs are bred to retrieve ducks, they are trainable to recognize the difference, to an extent. Like most other dogs, they do have a prey drive and can get excited around the birds and kill them. I never, ever leave him alone with my chickens.
Training him with the adults was a lot different. I let a couple of the calmer adults out to free range and brought him out on a leash. He was excited at first and tried jumping up and down because he wanted to play with the chickens. I corrected this behavior. Any behavior where's he was paying any attention to them, I corrected. Now I can have him out with all the chickens free ranging and he isn't on a leash. I watch them all very diligently and he isn't completely done with his training. I have him trained to the point where if I say, leave it. He completely redirects his attention to something else, which is what I want. I'm still working with him, and you have to keep working with your dog. I would recommend just taking baby steps and not jumping into anything you or your puppy isn't ready for. You will have the benefit of training the puppy from a young age, so that will help. I also want to reiderate that I would still never leave any dog alone with the chickens, no matter the level of training. The prey drive is just too high and often don't have direction, they may hurt or kill chickens. Good luck and I hope you find something that works

 

[centrarchid]

Any advice on how to socialize our new lab puppy to our flock of 10 chickens? I want him to love my ladies as much as I do.

Depends on age of pup.

Since unknown to me, start by putting pup on leash then having it out with birds. Sit down among birds and entice them around you and pup with food or treats. Be calm yourself and avoid looking directly at birds because dog knows what you are looking at. Discipline dog when it directs improper attention at birds. For some folks that could mean simply looking at birds although that could also mean simply not trying chase or snap at them. Use leash to pull back pup as needed. During first interactions be prepared to quickly but gently grab pups snout and push it to ground while saying something like "leave it" or "no bother" in a growly voice. Timing is very important. This needs to consistent and repeated.

 

[Chickens R Us]

Depends on age of pup.

Since unknown to me, start by putting pup on leash then having it out with birds. Sit down among birds and entice them around you and pup with food or treats. Be calm yourself and avoid looking directly at birds because dog knows what you are looking at. Discipline dog when it directs improper attention at birds. For some folks that could mean simply looking at birds although that could also mean simply not trying chase or snap at them. Use leash to pull back pup as needed. During first interactions be prepared to quickly but gently grab pups snout and push it to ground while saying something like "leave it" or "no bother" in a growly voice. Timing is very important. This needs to consistent and repeated.

This exactly what I did with my dogs ages 6 (Australian Shepard) and 7( Border Collie) it works with any age dog. I now am able to leave them outside alone with no problems, 2 years now.

 

[tepchickens]

Thanks so much for all the advice. I think we are off to a good start. One of the chickens stuck her head through the dog kennel yesterday and the puppy just watched her share his water