stray dog

[Sally8]

I wasn't sure (and still aren't) of where to put this post but wanted to show off my new avatar. Cooper came to us as a stray 9 years ago. We gave him to the dog warden but expressed an interest if no one claimed him. He has been our baby ever since. He is NOT good with children, other dogs or chickens. He does herd the cats and doesn't hurt them. It takes a lot of work to keep him as a pet but we've done it successfully for 9 yrs. He's very protective of my hubby, myself and our home.
My point being, Australian Shepherds are not meant for a docile family or with very small children. If you have Aussies, do you agree? We went to obedient school when he was very young and learned that he is quite a block head. lol I'm not sure if they live a long time or not as he is 82 pounds. Most Aussies don't weigh that much. Maybe because he has a large head and that the breeder knew he wasn't show material, they never looked for him. (He did run away several times until we fenced in our whole back yard.) AND HE IS AFRAID OF COWS! ISN'T HE A BEAUTY!

 

[Mountain Man Jim]

Beautiful dog. It's too bad he's a blockhead.

Our Aussie, Jasper, is a bit more true to the breed. Jasper learns very quick, primaily because he spends ever second (awake or not) trying to understand what we want him to do next. When we first got him (he was adopted) we showed him the chickens, we said don't touch and he said OK. And, that was that.

I don't believe the notion that you can't each old dogs new tricks. I would work on Cooper's training and put the poor guy on a diet

He looks that as sweety and probably loves to please.

Jim

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

I have a tri-color working breed Australian Shepherd 13yo male unaltered. He is about 75-80lbs but we do have his papers. We just started raising chickens this years and he thinks they are his pups. Great with kids. I would maybe think yours may have been chased/abused by kids, that is why he would be aggressive toward them. He should be able to be trained on the "leave it" command, even at his age. They are one of the smartest breeds, although I we think we got the village idiot, "Chance" has a very short attention span. If you try training with chickens do so very slowly, maybe 10 minutes of training per day until he starts improving. In the last year "Chance" has developed cataracts and is loosing his hearing. But since we have been on this property for 4 years, he functions pretty well. We are now just giving him the best life we can until he gets to a point we feel life is no longer good for him.