How did you stop your dog from wanting to eat the chickens?

Hi Everyone,

Sorry I've been posting so much lately, I just have so many questions and no one else to ask!

Anyway, my question is how do you train a dog to know that chickens aren't food. I have a great big old (11 yrs) Alaskan Malamute that never tried to eat anything in his life. He's had 4 week old kittens bat him on the nose and he never bothered anything. However, since moving to the country he's decided he wants to investigate these dog instincts that were so buried before we didn't think he had any. He noticed one of the neighbors dogs chasing the wild turkey so he's picked up on that. Then when my chicks were about two weeks he went to eat one. I yelled "NO" right as he got his mouth around her and he immediately let go and the chick was fine but now I don't trust him. I take him with me every morning and evening when I check on the chicks and he sits outside the run and watches them. I feed them weeds through the chicken wire so he can see them up close and even smell them. He'll look like he's just interested in watching them but then he'll lick his chops. When he does that and looks too focus on them I tell him no in a low voice but beyond that, I don't know what to do. I'm afraid they smell too much like what they are and he's eaten cooked chicken in the house so is it too much to expect him to learn the difference at this old age? I want to free range the chicks when they're big enough but I'm afraid my dog will eat them.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions/advice.

Jenica

Jenica, first off ,Your Malamute is gorgeous!
Now I just do not think any well fed and properly raised Canine family member is actually wanting to eat a chicken. I do however believe , it is the natural instinct for any Predator to chase and catch! Your Malamute is no different. He has not been raised around the flighty and quick movements that fowl make, so he is very interested in them! He obviously does not associate them with family members. His only choice for this strange animal is prey, or more than likely "ToY" and play time!
the Quiet "No" and repremand you are using if a good start! Keep him close but separated from the Birds by fencing. Control any sudden movements around the birds so they do not run or fuss. Your Dog may take that as an aggressive action by the birds and want to protect you! Keep him attentive to what you are doing by talking low and calmly and let him see that you are ok. He will see that you are happy and safe and the bird post no threat.

It will take Quite a while of watching and training , but remember , he has no affection for birds since they were not a part of his younger life and he has a lot of adjustments to do! Just be careful to keep him close to them but separated .

Jenica, I have 6 retrievers of my own that hunt water fowl and upland game. They also compete in hunting test which means that all my dogs are tough to retrieve all types of birds.
These same dogs get to run in my yard with the chickens. I start all my chicks off in the house, there all my dogs get to see them and understand that these are MINE. I let them get up close and personal while I hold a chicks, once the chicks are moved into the barn I allow my dogs one at a time to come in and lay next to me as I feed the free to roam now chicks.
What this does is show my dogs that these are not there toys. Once they look bored, and would rather be anywhere else but in the barn feeding chickens yet "again" We move to the yard, I supervise this for a week or so before ever turning my back.
If you make it boring you will have a easier time, (a running cat is fun to chase, one that just looks at you, not as fun)
Of course I recently let my duck out with the chickens, when I let the dogs out, the chase was on. My yelling stopped them, and luckily they now see it as just one of those things there not supposed to have.
Can't wait to hear what hubby has to say on the first day of duck hunting now.
This isn't going to work for everyone, and a dog that already thinks it's fun to chase or kill them is going to be alot harder to train. It can be done but it takes time.
I hope this helps, I understand dogs far more then chickens.

Ok, here's my two cents....

Some dogs are obvious threats, meaning they openly try to get to the poultry. Others need to be enticed.... such as flapping wings and a flock running by them. And you have some that just have no interest whatsoever.

I have a shih tzu that loves to mother everything. Much to my surprise one day(this has been 6-7 yrs ago) I came home from work to see that yep my parakeets were out of their cage (they chewed thru the small wire holding the door shut). My loveable Boo Boo who had always been with birds and never ever been inclined to attack ate every single one of them. There was a rainbow of colored feathers and small pieces throughout most of the house......

I guess temptation was too much for her that day. When I am home she just ignores the pet birds that walk/fly thru the house...even to this day, she's never touched another but I know better than to trust her...lol.

If I were you I would accept that you love your flock and your dog and just always try to keep them separate. If the flock is out put the dog on a restraint or in the house. I think it's not worth the worry and fretting and the getting upset after the fact to try to make him be friends and love the birds.

I would do as you have been , take him with you to see the birds and how you interact with them. Continue to gently remind him the birds are not chew toys, or something to chase. But accept the fact that he is a prey animal and chickens are low on the food chain... he may never see them as anything other than that.

Good luck!!

Julie

I think you hit the nail on the head Eufaula, now that you mention the quick movements, I think that is what gets him worked up. When he's watching them outside the run he will start looking away, but then they'll get in a squabble and one will jump up or flap it's wings and then he gets really focused on him. He's never chased anything before moving out here except when a squirrel surprised him once. He ran two steps after it before he realized what he was doing and then stopped and looked confused. That's why it surprised me so much when he went for the chick. He doesn't even play with toys, we got him from the pound as an adult and he just didn't understand the point of all the toys we bought him. We tried everything for over a year to get him to play and the most he'd ever do was a butt-tucked run around the living room for 15 seconds and then collapse, roll over and give us his belly to scratch. Sorry, I'm running on, I'll ramble about him forever if people let me ;^)

I think I'm going to keep letting him watch through the wire but instead of me deciding it's time to go back to the house I'll do what K9 said and wait until he looks bored. When he stops showing interest in them I'll start the process over in the run. Then I'll do it with them free-ranging with him on a leash. He loves walking out to the barn with me so I really want to get him used to them so I don't have to leave him in the house when I visit the chickens. Also, I want to learn the training process now because I eventually want to buy a puppy to train to watch the livestock and the chickens.

Thanks for all your help.

I raise my chicks in the house and my dog just sighs and realizes that i've brought some weird new pack members home again. I think you have to just play it by ear. Not every dog can do that. I think of malamutes as being sort of more wild at heart than my old mutt, but that might not be true. Here's my dog, Shackleton with his chicks.

Now here is who I really worry about at our house.... good thing she's an indoor kitty!

She's going to win her confidence and then...

it isnt so much that the dog wants to eat the chickens but WOW is it fun to see the feathers fly.. I wouldnt trust him.

Cute pictures! They remind me of this one. We got 'Bob' to raise an hour after he hatches. At first the cats werent sure about him, but now he can run around the house and they just ignore him. Unfortunately i would never suggest raising a single duckling by human parents. He refused to live outdoors now that he is grown up. He screams as soon as Ryan or I are out of sight.

i found last evening that my two female geese had bite marks on their necks. one was bad enough that i pinned her down and washed it up and poured peroxide on her [she is avoiding me now!]

i have one dog that can slip through the gate on his pen.... and when the dogs are in the pen, the geese taunt them terribly... but i haven't witnessed anything yet...

he is a blue heeler marked mixed dog, very small but tall framed... he has yet to even looked crossed eyed at a bird, but if he comes near one i chase him away...

so, who else is having species sparks flying...?

I wouldn't trust either of our dogs around our chickens, geese, ducks or goats. In the past they've caught and killed a neighbor's chickens and ate them. They did not care that they were well fed at home!
I keep them far away from our critters.

MollyD

I have a Australian Cattle dog and my old man has a half Pug/half Bichon. My dog knows to leave "our" family alone. The stupid pug/bichon, Pichon is what they call them, doesn't learn and I'm always yelling at him. For the most part though they both leave the animals alone, although my dog really wants to eat the guinea pigs. I don't blame him though, they do sound like his squeaky toys : )

I have a standard poodle who is nine years old, and feel fairly certain she would kill the chickens if she had a chance. Not that she is aggressive or wanting to eat them, but just because she is hyper and would want to play with them. She was ok with them in the house in a box, but outside is another story. Twice she put her paw on them when they were just a few weeks old, holding them down to the ground. If chickens can scream, they were screaming and squirming and she just stood there looking like someone who has just nailed a fly with a flyswatter, "Aha I got ya". Both times I yelled and she let them up. Incredibly neither were injured, so obviously she didn't have her weight on them.

As much as I would like to let her in the yard with the chicks I really don't think I can ever trust her with them, just because, like I said, she is incredibly hyper.

So lately I've been tying her to the back of the garage and then letting the chickens out late in the afternoon to run free in the yard. So far it's working out okay She is there to bark at any cat that might come around, and she can't get to the chickens. I still try to keep a close eye on them though.

I enjoy hearing your stories, it helps me learn.

Karen

looking forward to transferring the goats and puppies to another pen. the goose is trying to set. my son recovered at least six scattered eggs this morning to her nest, one of which was in the goat puppy pen, so we no wknow who is the egg sucking dog! but he is so good with the goats...

Beautiful Mal......

However, the Northern breeds are the more primitive breeds. That translates to heavy prey drive and an ability to survive on their own.

I have Akitas, and am not even going to try making them get along. The chicken area will have chain link buried a foot with a hotwire running around the outside at lower nose level - and not just for my dogs; we also have coyotes.

Generally, I can point to anything and say "Mama's *whatever*" and the dogs walk by it looking the other way in an exagerated pose of "I don't see anything", but chickens are just too much fun.... they squawk and flap and feathers fly.....

"MINE" is my term. having a 14 month old baby, it's handy to use for all species LOL... but the one dog ignores me. the other night he was out and wouldn't go in, kept barking at me and my goat, and the utility light kept flickering on and off. i tried to teach him the command get IN your PEN.... then fired off the shot gun into the ground. he went in. nearly had to do that again this morning. the goats were free ranging closer to the house than usual, and a kitten decided to come out and see what we were up to. he went after the kitten and i yelled, but i think he stopped because he sees a territorial boundry the kitten crossed and was satisfied when it retreated. i don't think a yell could stop a dog from catching a kitten... sdo glad he protects the goats, they are a bigger investment per capita, and eventually will be farther from the house, and the chickens...

We have a mixed breed hound who is about 70 lb.s .We keep telling her they are her chics and ducks, and she keeps going up to check on them .

She hates the owl who got our cat and barks like crazy when she hears or sees it .

I hope she will get along with the chics and ducks.Sshe has this sqrrel who keeps coming in the yard for water and food she chases, one of her babies fell out of tree into yard and she grabbed it ,I screamed NO!She turned it loose .That surprised both of us because she doesn't like squirrels.

Our cats never bothered the birds the few months we had them 7 yeras ago.Our cats understood NO too .We taught them with squirt water bottle .

My cats are confined to the yard we have for them and had for Penny. They don't know there is no top to the fence, so they don't think they can get out unless the gate is open. Tommy likes to go out when the chicks are free ranging and watch them. He and chit would absolutely catch the chicks if they could. I have no doubt about that. They both are wonderful mousers. In fact, a couple of years ago, chit caught a ground squirrel and brought it to me to flush. It was too big, so I took it back out and disposed of it out there. Chit has also chased deer and coyotes from the yard before we fenced it in. She knocked out a winder screen to go after the coyotes. I think they told the others around here about that, because we haven't seen hide nor hair of them ever since.

GG

BTW, Chit is a Maine Coon Cat. Tommy is a Domestic Short Hair.

Those Maine Coon cats are gorgeous.

Thanks, Patch, she was a stray. We were still living in Detroit, and had lost our calico. I had said I wasn't going to have another cat until we moved up here. Famous last words. I was sitting on my next door neighbor's porch when she (the neighbor) told me about a new kitten in teh area. I looked over and all I saw was tail. Of course I fell in love immediately. We had no idea where she came from, but she was only about 5 or 6 weeks old, and was pretty filthy, so had been out for a while. I took her to the vet, had shots, health checked, and kept her.

I didn't know what she was until I was looking at a "Cat Fancy" magazine and lo and behold, there was her picture in it. It was of a champion male Maine Coon Cat. She looks exactly like him.

GG

I never gave much thought to where cats came from before. I googled your maine coon cat and this cat has a very interesting history.

The first picture that comes up on google is a woman holding this HUGE yellow and white cat. Looks like a fake picture to me. I've never heard of a cat that large. But wikipedia says the Maine Coon Cat can reach 40 inches long. I'll have to think about that, and maybe do a search on the origin of cats.

Karen

I have always loved Main Coon cats! You were lucky to have found one Granny.

Looking at the title of this thread it occurs to me that you really can't stop a dog from WANTING to eat a chicken. The best you can do is make it clear that you, as the pack leader, will not allow the dog to eat your chicken. I agree with the "MINE" principle. I've been using it for years with my dogs and cats. But on their own I am pretty sure it would be a chicken massacre.

We used to have a German Shepherd that killed our chickens, so I tied her up and let the chickens run all around her. I can't remember how long I did this but she got used to them and I would watch her for awhile till she finally left them alone. Everytime she would go after them I yelled at her to stop and get away from them. She finally got the idea and left them alone. Hope this works for your dog.

oh my- dogs, cats, and chickens. 9 yrs ago, when we got our 1st set of chickens, ducks, turkey's, geese, pigeons and rabbits....we got an older mixed brindle dog named Judy. She never bothered a thing...didn't bat an eyelash. Then we got a younger black lab named Sam from a rescue shelter. My DH and I went to work and when we got back.....dead bodies all over the place.....we about cried. Over half our animals gone. There was so much damage, we knew both dogs had to have been in on it. We took Sam back.....that broke my heart too. My DH told me that you can have one really good dog....but when you get 2 of them together, they'll come up with 3x's more bad ideas. We left Judy chained up for a couple days and she left everything alone.

We didn't have chickens or anything but dairy cows for about 6 years, then got started with new chicks last year. By then, Judy had passed and we had a new dog, a corgie/mixed mutt named Cowdog. Cowdog went right through the little chick door my DH had built for our 2 month old chicks....a killed a bunch of them. We put him on a chain close enough to the chicks that he could see but not touch, paid lots of attention to the chicks and completely ignored Cowdog. We fed and watered him, but would not look at him when he did it. Until that time, he had never been on a leash.....and between him being tied up AND ignored, it tore him up. We whined and whimpered something awful....and after about 4 days when we let him off and showed him some love again, he has not looked at another chick.....now he is the watch dog for them and alerted us many
times over the year of opossems or coons that got in the barn.
Now our Boxer dog Buster is a whole other story. He was 6 months old when we got him and managed to get to about 12 turkey's.....all dead. I have heard that Boxers are very smart, but this is not the case with Buster......he can and does learn.....but what he has learned has taken A LOT of work. He for the most part is like a great big house cat, lays around and sleeps all the time. He 'played' with the chickens, even got one in his mouth but then let her go. For some reason, he either hates the turkeys or loves the way they taste, and we just can't trust him at all. My DH said he just doesn't think Buster is smart enough to learn....I don't know. He was very skittish when we got him, and it has taken a lot of effort and playing with him on my part just to get him to come to me and listen. Anyway, when our two grown turkey's were out, he wasn't. When my husband put our 14 jumbo white turkey's in an outside pen that Buster could get under....he is now either chained up or only off the chain when someone is outside to watch him. He won't be trusted again, especially when he will stand outside the turkey pen and lick his big chops!
Then there is Rosy, the adult beagle we just got. She was a hunting dog before we got her and although she seems to find no interest in the grown chickens or turkeys, she is a little too 'interested' in all the chicks and the pigeons, so they don't come out of their houses.
We have had 7 cat's over the years....have 3 now.....and luckily for us, they have not seemed too interested in anything. We keep a good eye on them though, when we do let chicks out. It's better to be safe than sorry.....again.

I don't know if all this will help anyone, but that's my story. Every dog or cat is different, and you know your pet better than anyone else, although I can certainly understand the surprise and confusion you would over a pet you've had so long doing something usually out of his character! I hope something works for you Jenica! And you thought you could talk, huh? If you can't tell, I like to jabber away too.....and I always make the joke that this is what happens when you let someone who likes to talk loose with a keyboard and a nice big space to fill!! LOL... : )

Well I have two Pit Bulls Sam and Bullie and needless to say they are always in the house or their fenced yard, that is hot wired. I know with no doubt in my mind that my chickens would be history if the two of them ever got in with chickens. They love the cat, and people but not the chickens

I was surprised today to see my standard poodle untied and at the backdoor instead of tied to the back of the garage. The chickens were out, so you can imagine what went through my mind. She seemed anxious to come in the house.

When I checked, all the chickens, who are just 7 weeks old, were all accounted for and doing fine.

That's a nice victory. Who knows, maybe eventually I could trust her. She did well.

Karen