The Education of Ben

[Beekissed]

Sure does. It shows that it pays to take the time to do a little obedience training on these LGDs...helps to not have a huge dog dragging you around when it gets near strange dogs and people.

I need to work with him more, though...probably won't have time until fall now....busy time of year here.

He's doing well with the recovery....doesn't even show he's had anything done. He's a great dog and now he has the potential to be even greater!

 

[Baymule]

Your Ben is a wonderful dog, an asset to your farm and a partner to Jake. You were blessed to have Ben come into your life!

 

[Beekissed]

Could be just my imagination as it should be too early for those hormones to be fully out of his system, but I do believe Ben is showing subtle signs of a change towards less defiance of the rules. Just subtle but noticeable to me...he's quicker to comply with what is expected of him.

There for a bit, as he started to feel his oats, I could see a stubbornness in him to obey orders or conform to daily rituals, more aggression around food and Jake, more excitement over greeting and feeding than normal,etc. Now that he's been neutered it's like someone flipped a switch back to the former dog...the one that sees the sense in having peace with others, as it gets you more rewards.

I'm very much liking the results and it was well worth the money spent to have a dog that's more calm and able to use common sense while interacting with other animals and humans.

 

[Beekissed]

Ben turned a year old yesterday...would have taken a pic of him but he's looking pretty raggedy right now as he's shedding his winter coat and lying around in great dust pits in the summer heat.

He tore that wonderful dog bench I made him to utter shreds the other day....now I have to find a way to mend it. It sure won't be cushioned any longer, that's for sure. Dumb dog....still a puppy and chewing everything he can find.

We are still pretty pleased with him for all of that and are glad he's here...everyone who visits falls in love with him and wants to take him home.

He caught a squirrel the other day that came to rob the peach trees....ate it. He also has eaten any peaches that dropped, stones and all.

His neutering went off without a hitch and healed up just fine, with him licking it when he wanted to do so. He's not bothered with fleas and ticks right now and seems to be staying cool in this humid hot weather just fine.

He's been snacking on green tomatoes, strawberries and anything else I throw to him out of the garden. He's going to love it when stuff really starts coming on.

 

[Southern by choice]

Happy Birthday! Ben!!!!

Haven't been on much lately... my surprise to see he has turned 1 already! Time flies!

 

[BlessedWithGoats]

Happy Birthday Ben!!

 

[Baymule]

Oh Bee, your baby is growing up! He is such a wonderful dog, even with all his puppy antics, and is a good boy. As he matures, he can only get better.

 

[Beekissed]

Culled a 2 mo. old chick yesterday and was posting about that on my own forum and got this question. I thought it was worthy of posting here and explaining one aspect of Ben's education on all things chicken.

Um, if one does not want their chicken dogs chasing or killing chickens, why would you give him a chick to eat???


I GAVE it to him. That's different than him TAKING one.

It's the same as when I give them all the chicken scraps from my processing. I have not one iota of worry that this dog will then go and try to snatch his own chick or chicken merely because I handed him a dead one.

Folks seem to have this preconceived notion that if you feed dogs chicken they'll "get a taste for it"....got news for those folks, their dogs already have a taste for chicken. They are carnivorous. Same with putting dead chickens or scraps out in the woods, thinking it will "draw in predators" if you let them taste the chickens....got news for these city folks, those preds already KNOW your chickens are there and they already "have a taste for chicken".

Same with chickens and feeding them eggs....they already have a taste for eggs, have eaten eggs in their lifetime and will continue to eat eggs...but usually only eggs that have been compromised in some way in the nest or coop. I can throw an egg on the ground and they will run to the egg, but if it didn't bust open, they will all just move back to what they were doing. If it burst open, they will gladly partake.

Once you establish with the dog what he is allowed to do and not allowed to do, they usually follow that all their lives unless under some kind of duress. If they were starving, I'd say they'd kill some chickens for eating and rightly so. But, Jake's training is so deeply embedded that he would never have eaten that chick unless he WAS too hungry...he'd just carry it around for days, trying to put it back in the coop, sleeping with it, etc. When he was a pup and was handed a chick, he'd carry it around for a bit but would eventually eat it.

Ben will likely get to that point when he reaches maturity...even at this age he was reluctant to do more than sniff at it until I tore it open with my hands and threw it in a place that he recognized as "safe for eating of things that were thrown away". If I had killed that chick in front of him and he had gotten overly excited, then snatched it away from me eagerly, I'd have taken it from him and went back to square one training. I wasn't a bit surprised that he didn't want to take it from my hand and was quite pleased by that....it means he knows the chicken is mine, he's allowed to sniff it but not put his mouth on it. When I put it where I always feed them meat scraps, he knew in an instant he was allowed to eat it. Smart dog.

In order to train a dog about things, one has to expose them to that situation and see how they react, give correction when needed, redirect, etc. If you never expose them to it, you never know what they will do in that situation.

That's what always mystifies me about someone wanting to train a chicken dog but they never let the dogs and chickens roam about in the same place together "because I can't ever trust him"....how in the world will they show the dog how he is to act in that situation if they never give him a chance? That's the first day's training here...put the dog with chickens, then correct him when you see him getting overly excited about the situation. When you've done that while you are there and he responds appropriately, then test him for how he acts when you are NOT there....go in the house and monitor through the window, give voice correction at the least sign of interest in following the birds, etc. Usually that first day's training on chickens is all that's required, especially in a pup. That's all it took for Jake and also for Ben.

But...can't ever do that training if you never take the chance and let them be in that situation that you will want them to be living, in harmony with the chickens. Same with feeding them chicken and even chicks, feed it and see how they react. Ben shows great promise, judging by his reaction to the dead chick yesterday.

That's the long, long answer to your short question....sorry.

 

[Southern by choice]

Well put Beekissed!

 

[Kusanar]

Culled a 2 mo. old chick yesterday and was posting about that on my own forum and got this question. I thought it was worthy of posting here and explaining one aspect of Ben's education on all things chicken.

I feed my cats and dog raw chicken (store bought as I don't have birds), and they have pretty well learned not to snatch the food from me, in fact, the dog mostly won't even take his piece from me if I try to hand it to him, he just licks it and backs away, as soon as I drop it, he goes over and starts protecting it from the cats though (they will steal his food and all the snarling he can do won't stop them once they have gotten their mouths on it...) Your explanation makes sense