It is possible to teach a former chicken chaser to leave your chickens alone. When she was one year old my golden retriever caught a stray neighbor's chicken in our yard and plucked it like one of her chew toys. Luckily I caught her and got the chicken away before she killed it. My dog has a very high prey drive. She digs up chipmunks and kills them, stalks critters for a hundred feet or so, chases deer and kills mice and rats in the barn. If it moves she wants to chase it!
I worried when I got my chickens that she would hurt them. I too watched Caesers episode about chickens and dogs. He also had an episode about teaching a dog to be submissive to rabbits and other caged animals. That episode was actually the one which helped me train my dog. I wish I could remember the name of the episode! There was a dog who aggressively chased squirrels on his walks. Caeser took the dog in the backyard with a caged rabbit and guinea pig and taught the dog not to view the caged animals as prey.
This is what I did to teach my dog not to see chickens as prey:
1. Raised the chicks in the house for 6 weeks so they would become part of our pack. For the first few days my dog was not allowed in the room, but I left the door open so she could see and smell the chickens. She spent significant time whining in the hallway.
2. When the whining stopped I allowed her to go into the room, but she had to stay several feet away from the brooder and lie down. She was way too attentive. I reminded her to stop staring and following the peeps with her eyes by touching her side and saying "no". Snapping her out of it like Caeser says.
3. Finally she stopped staring at the peeps like she wanted to eat them. Instead she would relax with her head on her front paws while lying down and just watch. So then I took a peep out and touched her head with it, behind her mouth.
4. At first she wanted to turn her head, either to lick or eat it or whatever. She was so excited she was shaking. I touched her on the shoulder, like the "bite" thing that Caesar does and said "no". The goal was to keep her looking ahead and not look at the chickens. It took several days of doing this for about ten minutes a couple times a day for her to finally relax.
5. Then she got it. I put the peep next to her face and she looked away. That was the goal. She understood that I did not want her to make eye contact with the peeps. She should not be viewing them as prey.
Then it was safe to allow all the peeps to walk around her. I always made her lie down when in the room with the peeps. The peeps climbed all over her and some actually slept on her. Dogs are warm! When I brought the peeps outside for the first time, they followed her around. They trust her.
The biggest thing to remember is to not allow the dog to get close to the chicken unless it is being calm submissive.
It has been a year and she hasn't harmed a chicken. They still follow her around and pick hay or dirt out of her coat while she walks. Interesting enough when I brought her to a friends house who has a flock of chickens, she stalked them. I had to really stay on her to stop. It is like her chickens are part of her pack, other chickens I guess are fair game!
Here she is walking with her peeps all grown up, head low......it's possible for them to all get along!
I've wanted some my Whole darn life.
