Rottweiler Puppy Training with Rabbits

[DrakeMom]

I got my Rottweiler puppy... she's 11 weeks old. (I named her Nitro) She's an amazing pup and easy to train. She's very energetic but also focused. She seems to be able to read my mind. But there's one thing: she loves my rabbits!!! She would love to eat them. Everytime I go near my rabbits she follows me and then runs around their cages, paws the bars and bites them. The rabbits of course gets very agitated. Then I can't hardly get her away from them. I thought at first that she didn't understand about rabbits and just wanted to play with them. But today, I got one of them out and Nitro came over there. I thought I would let her sniff the rabbit. But then she bit its foot and started trying to pull it towards her.

I have a 11 yr. old Boxer and have never had a problem with him chasing after any of my animals. When I first got my rabbits, he just acted like he had been around them his whole life.

I'll include pics of the cages I have.

@MarkJr @RainbowHen @EverythingDucks

 

[chickieandchookie]

Dogs and rabbits can be a lethal (for the rabbit) combination. Not always but it appears that the little one has a high natural instinct to want to do what is natural for dogs. The only thing I can suggest is an underground electric fence that is placed around the rabbit area. Train the puppy to not go over a certain point in the yard - if he does, he will get a (very minor) shock that is unpleasant rather than painful. He will soon learn that it isn't a nice experience to go any further than his trained point. Unless you can put up a divider of sorts, electric fences are safe option. I worked in animal welfare for years and this type of fencing is a good alternative.

 

[JaeG]

It will probably take lots of training, and a few years (until she has matured mentally) to be able to trust her to be out there unattended, and some dogs have too strong a prey drive to ever be trustworthy around small animals. If you can have a dog run she can be securely contained in that would be best, otherwise you'll need to have her on a chain so that she cannot access your rabbits if you need to leave her outside.

Just a little while ago a newborn baby was killed in my country by the family Rottweiler while the mother quickly went to the toilet. I'd say it was like most dogs and hadn't been trained well enough, and you should never leave a baby unattended with a dog as that tragic accident demonstrates.

But basically you will need to teach your puppy to ignore the rabbits. You need to start off as far away from them as your puppy can cope with (so that her attention is on you, not distracted by the rabbits) and have a command where she has to look at you and gets rewarded for that. Slowly over time you will be able to get closer and closer, but it will take a long time, and I would not leave her out there unattended with access to the rabbits until she has shown that she can be trusted (and even then watch her out the window because some dogs will be good as gold until they think no one is looking).

Puppies need lots of training and large breeds can take 2-3 years to be mentally mature enough to start to calm down. Make sure you are doing lots of basic training because puppies have no idea how to behave in the human world, and it's up to you to show her how to be a great dog.

 

[Newbie_Chicken_Lady]

My neighbors dog would run like a hooligan at my chickens whenever my rooster crowed. Their dog was gentle so we just showed her that they were our attention and that she shouldn't attack them. One day, she ran over to our yard, our chickens were outside our gate (I let them out to dig for worms and bugs). The dog brought the ball over and dropped it so I would throw it. She paid no attention to the chickens, she tried to smell them once but the rooster made sure she never wanted to sniff them again.

Since your dog does not seem gentle with animals, maybe do the opposite. Put Nitro on a chain, far enough away from the rabbit cage where she can't reach them. Then just pretend that the rabbits don't exist. Use this time with Nitro to play and train her. She will learn that you are more fun than the rabbits. Also gradually shorten the chain in relativity to the rabbit cages as the days/weeks go by.

 

[Oncoming Storm]

The way we trained our rescue dog to get used to chicks and chickens was to kind of establish dominance over who owns them. We took him into the pen after doing the look but no touch method for awhile. I held him by the collar because I was nervous. My dad had us both say in a very VERY firm voice “Buddie, these are MY chickens. Not yours” idk why but this worked. Right now we’re working with my eight month old puppy who likes to chase. He’s pretty responsive to the OLLIE STOP but he gets easily distracted. What you could do is hold the rabbit and do the mine not yours thing and any time she gets too feisty for your comfort just pop her on the nose just to break her focus on the rabbit.

 

[DrakeMom]

Improving!!!

I gave her something to chew on. They're really good for puppies. I'll put the link for them on here in case anyone is interested: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X1A4UPM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabt1_JhsWFbBGKE4YY?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

 

[JacinLarkwell]

It's possible she won't ever learn they're not prey, and a Rottweiler or any dog for that matter, will very easily tear through those pens in seconds

 

[cassie]

Bear in mind that chickens and rabbits really bring out the prey drive in dogs.

 

[Newbie_Chicken_Lady]

Keep us updated! I would love to see Nitro's progress.

 

[Newbie_Chicken_Lady]

WOW nice work!