Newbie chicken keeper with a question about dogs.

[zazouse]

Gracie like all pups had to learn that chicks were not to play with, a few hens with baby chicks and a water hose taught her real quick and she like my other 8 dogs all respect the birds and would never harm them.
Gracey can catch a chicken on command and not hurt it, she also breaks up bird fights when asked to and when trhe guineas gang up on something she is right their to see what it is, thats how she caught the coon.
I am lucky to have her here she is a great farm dog and a loyal friend

 

[danadear]

Wow..that is amazing. Maybe I should give it a try. Did you start her out with grown birds? I have chicks right now, no adults. I took one of the chicks up to the dog's yard and held it up to them. They were very interested. I think Bella would like to play with the chicks more than anything, of course her playing with them would surely kill them. I will have to give this a lot of thought. I would feel so guilty if one the chicks was killed while I was trying to train Boogie and Bella how to treat them.

 

[sonjap]

I have two border collies. One I knew would never hurt a fly, but the other one has killed a couple of ground squirrels and I was worried about her. I would hold the chicks and make her sit and let her sniff but always made sure she was being gentle. I would tell her "no" very firmly if she would try and nose it too hard.
I was still worried about when I wasn't holding them for her and read a thread here that recommended this web site:
http://canterlc.com/StopChickenKillerDogs/site/pages/home/
I watched some of the free video clips and was impressed. I went ahead and paid for viewing the full video and I think it helped a lot. I can totally leave her alone with the chickens and she doesn't bother them.