Help With Training Dogs Around Chickens

[LMK17]

I have 2 puppies. German shepherd mixes, 9 months old. They've been on our farm since they were about 4 months old. Both pups did well around our pastured chickens until recently. I wasn't ever 100% sure they were chicken-safe, but they certainly seemed to be heading in that direction. At any rate, they spent many hours in the yard with the chickens and no injuries. However, one puppy, Dot, has apparently discovered the fun of chicken chasing. She went after one for the first time about a month ago and has done it several times since. And honestly, the problem seems to be getting worse. She tries to fixate on them when she's in her pen or on a leash, and given the chance, she makes a beeline straight for them. The other pup, Ruby, is still pretty trustworthy when she's alone with the chickens, but if her sister is also out and goes for one, Ruby joins in. So far, we've only suffered some lost feathers and flesh wounds, but I have no doubt Dot would kill a chicken if she had the chance.

Maybe on a related note, Dot has started chasing the cats more aggressively, too. For the most part, the cats don't really seem to mind, and I've seen them quickly put the pups in their place more than once. But I'm not sure if the cat and chicken chasing is meant to be aggressive, or play, or a mix? Hopefully the dogs are just in a boneheaded adolescent stage that they'll come out of soon?

Any thoughts and/or training tips? FWIW, these aren't LGD in a strict sense. I'm going to be happy if they just learn to ignore the chickens and deter predators just via their presence. That said, we've already lost a hen to a hawk, and the coyotes are thick around here, so the sooner these dogs get chicken safe and can roam more often, the better.

 

[Baymule]

Here's what I did to my Great Dane/Black Labrador dog.

https://www.theeasygarden.com/threads/doofus-the-retardo-rooster-and-parker-the-destroyer-dog.13093/

I have a Great Pyrenees that was free because she was a chicken killer. It took me 2 years to turn her around. Basically the coop was in "her" yard and she protected her yard. At first, if she thought no one was around, she charged the coop snarling. She HATED the chickens. I tapped the window, which stopped her in her tracks. Then I went outside and talked to her. Eventually, I let her in the coop with me. She was scared because she had been horribly punished at her previous home.

Then I realized that she liked chicken feed! I had 20 chicks, just out of the brooder and I let her in their pen to eat the feed. I praised her the whole time. The chicks ran all around and she ignored them. I sat in the pen, petting and praising her. By this time, I had had her for 2 years. As the chicks got bigger, I let them out and they followed her around. They were "hers". She became a fantastic chicken protector.

I basically had to do the same thing after we moved and got sheep. She just wanted to tackle them. I built a pen in her yard and weaned the lambs in it. They were in "her" space and she accepted them. My husband and I got lawn chairs and let the lambs out. She did fine. We put them up. We let them out for longer and longer periods until finally we could leave them out all the time. She is now 10 years old.

You need to get on top of this problem right away. Every time your dog gets away with bad behavior, it becomes more of a habit, harder to break. If you have to pen your chickens or the dog, do so. Only let the chickens out when you can supervise, only let the dog out when you can supervise. Keep you a rolled up newspaper. LOL

Take Dot in the chicken coop and let her know in no uncertain terms what a big No-No the chickens are. Do the same with Ruby. Take a chicken in the dog's pen and do the same. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Best case, it works and both dogs are good protectors. Worst case, Dot continues to go after the chickens, taking Ruby along for the fun. You might have to make a decision to either find Dot a new home or keep her penned when the chickens are out.

We wish you the best. Please keep us updated with Dot and Ruby.

 

[Blue Sky]

My experience is that with immature (actual age will vary) dogs they will chase anything that runs especially the smalls. Nearly all of my dogs have killed something on my farm. In one case my three juvenile lgds killed a ewe. They had to be rearranged to work separately and have been fine for over a year. It is subjective, it depends on your dogs and the breed/breeding. You have to spend a lot of time with everybody. If your pups aren't ready separate them from whatever they're chasing, try limited exposure w a good outcome at the end of the session. Good luck.

 

[Southern by choice]

Not knowing what they are mixed with does make it a bit more difficult. Ultimately the bond and relationship you have with the dogs will make all the difference. Because of the sudden desire to chase I suspect the dog is bored and has no job. Dogs that have no job will amuse themselves in any way they can. You need to give her something to do and make it clear you are the leader, chickens are not a toy, not to be chased.
Obedience training id always my first rule. This teaches the dog respect, and that you are the leader, or alpha. It builds a bond that is so strong the dog's desire is to please you. Building boundaries for the dog is imperative. This comes from the dog respecting you.

All the other advice is great but if you don't get the hierarchy down and respect either it will never work or take ten times longer than it should.
Most training is not about the behavior you want to fix at the moment, it is the lack of understanding job, roles, behavior.

 

[Sara Ranch]

At 9 months old, they are still puppies and have lots of energy.

Do they have a chance to be "off duty" and run and play and burn off the energy?

Are they getting enough to eat?

Do they have variety in their day?

Where do they spend their day? In a kennel? On a leash? In a pasture? In the house?

I adopted two pups. It's been a LOT of work with these two...

* the pups get a hard run/long walk/play time in a pasture (no other animals in the pasture) almost daily
* the pups are fed --- so now they are tired and full bellies
* I carry over all of the smaller animals, like the chickens, over to the doggies so they can smell them and I say "protect"
* I walk the doggies over the larger animals, the cows, and say "protect"

The doggies use to chase the chickens/ducks for fun when they first arrived and would get loose. Now, they get a hard run/long walk/play time so it's less interesting to chase chickens. The chickens just casually walk by or out of the way of the dogs.

The doggies still do what's natural to them --- herd animals.

Yesterday a chicken left Spice Field and went into the Goat Pasture where the dogs were. BOTH dogs chased and pinned down the chicken. I was sobbing and screaming for them to stop. (I was in the Coop Flock Pasture.) There was a six foot fence between us. I was hurtling 40 gallon tubs over the six foot fence at the dogs, trying to save the chicken. Finally help arrived in the Goat Pasture and the dogs were removed from the chicken and the chicken picked up and given to me over the fence. The chicken had been slimed. Licked. Slobbered on. Had minor injuries - a scrap on the foot and a nick on the comb. I swear it looked like both dogs were eating the chicken.

This was a reminder to me that things aren't always what they look like. Nutmeg (the runaway chicken) learned her lesson too. Stay with the group!!!

To recap -I work my dogs to burn off their extra energy/make them tired, feed them, before I have them work in/around the other animals. It has had positive results.

 

[LMK17]

Thanks, everyone, and sorry for the delayed response. It seems I do just about everything in my day except sit down to the computer! HA! But I have read and appreciate all the responses.

Thanks, @Baymule for your info. I think the suggestion to use feathers to pound it into the dogs' heads that they can't chase the chickens is an excellent one. And it happens that I have a bag of chicken feathers sitting around that I can use... (The house dog, Sam, killed one in the summer, and I plucked it planning to use the feathers for training, although I haven't yet.)

Not knowing what they are mixed with does make it a bit more difficult. Ultimately the bond and relationship you have with the dogs will make all the difference. Because of the sudden desire to chase I suspect the dog is bored and has no job. Dogs that have no job will amuse themselves in any way they can. You need to give her something to do and make it clear you are the leader, chickens are not a toy, not to be chased.
Obedience training id always my first rule. This teaches the dog respect, and that you are the leader, or alpha. It builds a bond that is so strong the dog's desire is to please you. Building boundaries for the dog is imperative. This comes from the dog respecting you.

No real idea what the pups are mixed with. The shelter called Mom Dog a GSD mix, although she looked 100% German Shepherd to me. I think there must be some hound in them, as Ruby bays. Dot is tri-colored-- could be hound, could be... whatever... and has a tightly curled tail. Ruby looks more GSD-ish. They both have floppy ears. I have some pics if you scroll down a bit here: https://www.facebook.com/296Farm/ Wild guesses as to what they might be welcome.

@Southern by choice far as a job, can you please elaborate? Ideally, the pups' job would be to guard the yard and things in it from animal or human intruders. The electric fence has so far kept them from going into the pasture on their own, but the yard is a good 1.5-2 acres and is where the chickens and barn cats hang out. Of course, encouraging them to guard is difficult when they are too busy chasing the critters they're supposed to be protecting.

Any tips on teaching the dogs to respect me? I feel we're definitely moving in that direction, and they listen pretty well, but advice is certainly welcome.

At 9 months old, they are still puppies and have lots of energy.

Do they have a chance to be "off duty" and run and play and burn off the energy?

Are they getting enough to eat?

Do they have variety in their day?

Where do they spend their day? In a kennel? On a leash? In a pasture? In the house?

Yes, I'm certainly hoping that once puppy adolescence passes, they'll both develop into respectable farm dogs! Certainly they're at a pretty typical age for this sort of misbehavior.

They do have a chance to run and play. At night, once the chickens and cats are put up, the dogs have run of the yard. They run, wrestle, dig, and patrol all night. Sometimes they bark at deer or rabbits or coyotes over the fence, and I always make a point to go out, see what's up, and praise them. This time of year, they get to be loose from about 5 PM until well into the next morning, about 9 AM or so. In the morning, they head out with me to the pasture to feed the goats and steers and sometimes go out into the woods with me to check fences. Sometimes I'll toss them a ball or play some tug of war. Then they get their breakfast and are kenneled while the chickens free range during the day.

They are getting enough to eat. We feed a quality dry food + the occasional raw beef bone and training treats. They're both in good body condition.

During the day, they are kenneled when I can't supervise them. They share a 4 x 8 kennel on our back porch where they can look out and see much of the property. If it's particularly yucky outside or I just want to give them a little more room to stretch out, I put them in the garage, where they have some beds and toys.

They also come into the house for a bit each day. (First, I have to put up our house dog, who despises the pups.) They've been coming in for maybe 2-3 hours a day lately. Good chance to work on indoor manners and lets them bond with the family a bit more.

***

Today I was appalled because the dogs chased after the goats! They had never done that before. Actually, they're pretty submissive toward our biggest Boers whenever they show their horns. But today the pups chased down one of last year's kids. They jumped on her back and chased her into the corral until I was able to collar them both. Fortunately, the goat wasn't injured in the least. (So I'm thinking the dogs were playing as opposed to attacking.) The goats had come running up from a different part of the pasture, and I think the running herd was just too tempting for the pups. Bah! I guess now I'll need to only bring one pup at a time into the pasture and/or leash them?

They're also really bothering me with the way they interact with the barn cats, one in particular. Now, for awhile the barn cats were out all night with the puppies and no incidents. And truthfully, I don't know how roughly they played together all night. Currently, the cats get shut up at night because I came home one night to find them sitting on the highway. ::eyeroll:: But during the day when the cats are out and the pups are supervised, they play EXTREMELY roughly with the cats. Or at least it looks that way. Dot will roll our cat Shadow onto his back and appear to bite at him. The cat has never been injured, only slobbered, and interestingly, Shadow seems to actually seek out the puppies. He'll walk right up to them. He also doesn't run away when they "play" with him. If they do get too rough, then he'll hiss and swat, which makes the pups back off. Still, this kind of play seems like it could turn ugly, fast. SO do I let Shadow set the tone or train the dogs to leave the cats alone, period?

Thanks again!

 

[BrendaMNgri]

 

[Simpleterrier]

I like and have terriers. With any dog u have to be in charge and there is different ways to show that. I have an Irish terrier that just turned one as with my Airedale he ran into a five gallon bucket when he wanted to chase chickens and then I held him down. He only shows interest in them when he thinks they are trying to hurt one of us.the Airedale was a great dog one chicken scared my son when he was little and that dog would go ahead of my son and hold that same chicken down till he walked by. If u can get a dog to see that you are in control then those dogs will do what u want and need. You also need the dog to respect you to listen to u when u need it to.

I always like to only have one puppy at time. Two pups together don't listen as well.

 

[Beekissed]

All the other advice is great but if you don't get the hierarchy down and respect either it will never work or take ten times longer than it should.
Most training is not about the behavior you want to fix at the moment, it is the lack of understanding job, roles, behavior.

This exactly.

Plus, there may be another factor...sometimes pups from the same litter form their own pack and will not respond to a human pack leader's authority at all. I had a pair of pups like that and got rid of them...they didn't respond to any normal training techniques I'd used in the past.

How are they on the leash? Do they pull you around? If so, I'd start there...every day is a pack walk on the leash with instant corrections if they do not stay even with you or walk behind, but never ahead of you. All of that should have taken place as soon as you got them, but it's never too late to start leash walking and pack training.

Cesar Millan has some great tips on becoming a pack leader and his vids are all over YT, free for watching. If you don't get their respect as their leader, it's not likely you'll have the chicken dogs you want. Your pups have herd dog and possibly hunting dog genetics, so chickens are things to chase and things to catch...if you can't break through that instinct by becoming their pack leader, it's not likely you ever will, which is not the outcome you want if you plan to free range.

Done right, you can turn most dogs into chicken dogs with a minimal amount of fuss and training, but you have to have done that ground work first~they need to come immediately when you call, no matter what they are currently doing, they need to immediately obey the "leave it" command, they need to be able to sit or lie down in a calm position until you say they can get up. All of these things need to be able to happen before you can reasonably expect them to listen at all about the squeaky prey running around loose on your land.

Once you have their attention, training on chickens is a breeze. One or two corrections is all it took for my pups and they weren't even chasing...I never let it get to chasing. If they even look at the chickens with an intense, prolonged gaze, they get a correction. If they walk in the chicken's direction in those early training stages, I give a correction. Any overt attention given to the chickens gets a correction. They need to learn that the chickens are most definitely OFF bounds.

If you can catch them in those early stages of paying too much attention to the chickens, you can keep them from ever getting to the chasing part.

 

[Blue Sky]

For my chasers I did resort to a chain and drag. WITH SUPERVISION. It kept the running to a minimum. I have blackbelly and painted desert sheep who tend to be flighty. Once the chasing stopped I attached a weighted bell to dog's collar. They couldn't sneak up and if I heard a bell I knew to check. One dog did learn to get the bell in his mouth and prevent ringing but he also couldn't bite anything. They keep us on our toes. Still have all my dogs. Be patient.