Training dogs off the chickens

[sandiklaws]

Be warned... you will feel like an idiot screaming "bad shoe!" while whacking the heck out of a chewed flip flop- I know I did! It took 3 sessions of seeing the shoe grabbing it and giving it what for before my 10 month old male Dobe decided it was bad news... but he is cured of shoe chewing and it also worked on his glove fetish that was starting to get real annoying - neighbors must have thought I was off my rocker!

 

[kindir]

It all depends on the dog. If the dog perceives that the reward of the chicken is greater than the consequence of getting said chicken, forget it!

Breed, temperment and your timing will all play into the equation. I'm a pretty good trainer with several breeds. I have ONE dog who I believe I could train to be 100% safe around my chickens with me not there (a border collie, but only one of them). The terriers? Forget it. Never. Not in any way, shape or form. They were bred to hunt and while none of my dogs will touch a chicken if I'm around, there is no way my terriers will leave a free meal if I'm not there to claim it as mine...

 

[chicklet1]

This is definitely a thread that interests me, seeing as I have dogs. 3 of mine (Chinese Cresteds and 1 Xoloitzcuintle) are extremely prey-driven and I have no doubt that they would chase down a chicken. Now oddly enough they were raised around rabbits and turtles and show no interest in them whatsoever UNLESS THEY ARE OUT IN THE YARD. If they are in the yard, the dogs want to get at them. I had an outdoor turtle enclosure made of chicken wire and they eventually demolished it

so the turtles had to be moved back into their large tank. The dogs can get nose-to-nose with them there, and they show NO INTEREST at all.

The

are in a hutch where the dogs can get right up to them and they show no interest, save sticking their long doggie tongues in there to steal the rabbit food

, but take those same rabbits and sit them out in the yard and the dogs will go crazy trying to get at them.

So when I go to do the coop it is going to have to be super strong wire. I may even consider fencing off an entire area around the coop as well, but I did want them to get used to one another, so that would defeat the purpose of that. Keeping the chickens inside the house or on the porch would get them totally ignored by the dogs but that's not very practical for us. LOL

 

[sandiklaws]

You are right about needing to take breed into consideration, many of the breeds that were meant to work independently of man killing vermin would not work out. That being said, if it was a small dog, you might have some success if you put him in a wire crate in the chicken house (when he was tired and hungry) and rewarded him w/ treats every time he looked at you instead of the chickens. W/ time chickens would come to mean "chickens present=look at owner" I do this all of the time to cure stuff like bike and jogger chasing... I do use a clicker, which does make it considerably easier. You could also set up a senario w/ a fiesty mama defending her nest and the dog on leash w/ a muzzle- that set up would have the chicken attacking the dog and you would reward the dog for not doing anything by running away from the angry chicken... but if he tries to be a stinker let her whack him one. A few sessions of that MIGHT cure some dogs that are killing out of a play drive. I once had a border collie mix that had her formal off-leash heel proofed by chicken fire- I figured if she didn't break position w/ a crazy bird jumping at her she would be ready to move on to working off leash in more public areas w/ other distractions. This worked great, and she never looked at ANY birds (even my pheasants which were fun to scare) again.

 

[chickmix]

I have a 6mo golden retriever whom I'm trying to break the habit of running at the chicken run. It is enclosed in 1/2"x1" welded wire. The pup loves to go to the fence and watch the girls (10 weeks old). Well yesterday she was watching them with her nose on the fence when one of my Red STars came up and pecked her on the nose. You should have seen her surprise. Don't know if that deterred her from any attacks but sure was interesting.

 

[Zahboo]

Sounds good.

In my experience, I'll never trust my terrier off leash. We have her on a trainer leash (20ft) when the birds are freeranging and she wants out. This is for her safety too because when she chases the chickens, my chicken guard girl will attack her. We trained out chicken dog by just exposing her to them. She was 5 weeks when we first got her and the first night she stayed in the coop in her kennel. Then she was allowed inside. I have her trained sit, stay, lay, off. Always make sure they know these before trusting off lead. She will sometimes get excited when the rooster is chasing his hens, but besides that she lays there. I can let my chicks walk over her and trust her except she might roll over on them. I think all you need is patience.

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

GreyGhost-- you have a good foundation to train your dogs. I am sure you will be successful if you give your dogs the proper amount of time and then well timed corrections. Kudos to you for being proactive and not allowing dogs to make mistakes and kill before doing something about it. There is another thread in the "other pets and livestock" section of the board about someone training a dog with an ecollar.

 

[MattalynsBarn]

Okay, if you have time, read the whole story, it's very funny.

Our 70lbs dog, Micky (A German Shepard Golden Retriever mix) was out in the yard a few snowy winters ago, sniffing around in the dirt. It turns out he had caught a chipmunk! Did he eat it? No. He picked it up, with his comb teeth, and carried it up onto the deck, into his bed, and started grooming it. The poor thing's fir was all wet and spiky, and it was shivering like mad.
Every chance the chipmunk got it would try to run away. But Mick would go get it again, and resume bathing. After grooming it's back he flipped it over and started grooming it's belly, then it's face. Now the chipmunk was getting annoyed. It but Mick's tongue and held on. Micky yelped and started spinning. A few rotations later the chipmunk let go the flew off the deck.
With a bleeding tongue, Mick went down to get the chipmunk and start cleaning it again, however we stepped in.
No physical lasting harm was done to the dog, and, as far as we know, to the chipmunk either. The interesting thing is is that we have a bunny (and cats and lizards and fish, but they don't relate to this story), and the dog and bunny love each other, however ever since then Mick has been very cautious around the bunny's feet. It seems as though anything pointy freaks him out a little. I'm wondering weather or not he'll have the same attitude when we get chickens! I hope so. He still likes to groom and protect the bunny, but when she's had enough, he can tell.

 

[noodleroo]

You can train a dog to only eat when you tell it to eat. Thats how I stopped my black lab from eating the doves she was supposed to retrieve. A dog is a predator to chickens and probably shouldn't be trusted completely. With that said, I prefer to have my dog with the babies outside; I feel she is protection for them. She is a rough coat collie, a herding breed and she is trained to know what is 'mine' and what is 'hers' (her toys or food). Here she is with the chickens:

 

[Sundance Farm IN]

A rancher friend of mine swears she cured her dog by hanging the chicken that he had killed around its neck for a week. Whoa, stinky! He never killed another chicken. This seems drastic. Has anyone else heard of this?

It didn't work for us. Our Great Pyr just ate the turkey off her neck and was back for more with a few weeks.