Hi all, I recently got a 6 month old lab/(probably beagle) mix. I have been able to teach my past dogs to behave around chickens but wanted advice for how to train him. He really just wants to smell them but then they start to flap around and he gets aggressive. He only pays attention to them when I go out to the coop to do something. Other than that, he ignores them, but in the spring I want to start free-ranging again so the chickens will be in direct contact with him often. Any advice? How should I train him to not kill them? Thanks!!!
What I did with my dog was, I let him run around the yard with all of the chickens free ranging (supervised, of course. If the dog started to get aggressive then I put him back inside). He would chase them at first and then eventually got bored. When he wasn't really paying attention to the chickens, they would come over to investigate what he was doing. Then he would chase them again. After a week or two, he didn't even pay attention to the chickens at all. He just walks around, does his business, and then comes back inside. No chasing or aggression at all. Hope this helped a little!
Let it ride. They probably won't be able to catch one. We have 2 dogs. They would chase them around when we first let them out, but they grow used to them quickly.
