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I am not going to preach but I will give you a professionals aspect on the dominance roll. Don't do it--EVER. The dominance roll teaches the dog to not signal when he or she is about to bite (or commit a crime as we see it). So if you have a very low key dog you may get by doing it a few times--maybe more. However, if you have a dog who is anything but laid back (not just in your home but anywhere with other dogs) they then learn its not wise to signal before they bite so they just bite. You now have a serious problem because someone is hurt. It is the same method as "pack only leadership" and dominance theory which have been proven ineffective over 10 years ago due to the serious bites that occurred. There is much information on the Internet about it (usually under wolf behavior). I am not putting you down as many people try this method but some find out the hard way its a mistake. Swatting or hitting a dog is violence and violence begets violence--some dogs will learn to fear you (is that the relationship you want?), others will lose respect and may bite or become more difficult to work with and others will totally shut down and will not listen to you at all (not atypical of many Belgian Malinois).
As far as protection for the OPs chickens, the quickest and easiest thing to do is get an electric fence. It works when humans are there or not and eventually the dog learns as he/she can avoid the shock all by himself--and the timing is exactly when the dog gets too close (humans don't always have perfect timing and that confuses the dog). None of the "tricks" will be effective for long without proper training so protect the chickens with the fence which will buy you time to get going on the dog's training.
I am not going to preach but I will give you a professionals aspect on the dominance roll. Don't do it--EVER. The dominance roll teaches the dog to not signal when he or she is about to bite (or commit a crime as we see it). So if you have a very low key dog you may get by doing it a few times--maybe more. However, if you have a dog who is anything but laid back (not just in your home but anywhere with other dogs) they then learn its not wise to signal before they bite so they just bite. You now have a serious problem because someone is hurt. It is the same method as "pack only leadership" and dominance theory which have been proven ineffective over 10 years ago due to the serious bites that occurred. There is much information on the Internet about it (usually under wolf behavior). I am not putting you down as many people try this method but some find out the hard way its a mistake. Swatting or hitting a dog is violence and violence begets violence--some dogs will learn to fear you (is that the relationship you want?), others will lose respect and may bite or become more difficult to work with and others will totally shut down and will not listen to you at all (not atypical of many Belgian Malinois).
As far as protection for the OPs chickens, the quickest and easiest thing to do is get an electric fence. It works when humans are there or not and eventually the dog learns as he/she can avoid the shock all by himself--and the timing is exactly when the dog gets too close (humans don't always have perfect timing and that confuses the dog). None of the "tricks" will be effective for long without proper training so protect the chickens with the fence which will buy you time to get going on the dog's training.
