Saturday 26 April 2008

Dog Training with a Chicken - Reducing Prey Drive

This is just a quick follow up to the 'Do Your Pets Get Along?' article in this months newsletter.

I've found a short video of dog training with a chicken (who'd have thought it!) and thought you might be interested in watching it.

All dogs are individuals and so will have a different set of underlying issues, but there are several practical tips in this video that will hopefully be useful. In this video the family chickens of Marley and Me author John Grogan have been attacked by their dog and Cesar Millan shows some techniques to help reduce their dogs instinct to attack their pet chickens.

I hope you enjoy the video :-)



If you are interested in (or need) training for your dog to co-exist with your feathered pets then you might like to try this online dog training course (it comes with a 56 day money back guarantee). It covers all the things you'd expect and includes many bonuses like recipes, grooming, alpha dog etc. and access to a private dog training forum. Dog Training Course.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this post. I adopted a dog from the Animal shelter I work at, because she was going to be Put to sleep since she had such a high prey drive for "cats" and anything small and moving....including dust bunnies...or stuffed animals.


She now lives happily with 2 cats. I have not yet let her at the chickens, though. In due time,

Old Lizzie said...

How can I stop my Jack Russell Terrier from herding my chickens and chasing and sitting on the lowest hen in the pecking order? she breaks throughy every barrier I put up and only behaves with the chickens when she knows she's being watched.

Unknown said...

One technique that springs to mind is noise aversion (i.e. a can filled with stones given a quick shake whenever she is doing, or about to do, something you don't want, or a sharp vocal sound, or you could try a water pistol used in the same way). Another way may be to have her on the lead with you when you are in the chickens area and actively tell her how you want her to behave around them - perhaps have her stay in a sit or down whilst you feed them or allow her to walk around with you (praising her when being good) but correct her and quickly remove her from their area as soon as she shows any undue interest in the chickens. Or perhaps give her a little routine so that she has a particular toy to play with when near the chickens or she gets a particular favourite treat when she has been near the chickens without getting too interested in them (so hopefully she starts to associate the approved enjoyable experience with the chickens rather than the current enjoyable experience she has chosen for herself). Different things will work for different dogs so it may be a case of trying out a few different training ideas and see what she is most responsive to and then being persistant and consistent with it. A good all-round dog training guide is
http://www.self-sufficient-life.com/1/Dogs

Anonymous said...

thank you for this link- finally a training suggestion that does not involved tying a dead chicken around my dog's neck (rolling eyes)
thank you for a positive suggestion

How To make A Live Trap said...

Sometimes it is someone elses dog causing trouble with your flock of chickens. In the December issue of the Keeping Chickens Newsletter Fred sent in a photo of his neighbours dog caught in a live trap he had made. It led to several requests for building instructions which Fred very kindly gave the details of - the guide for building a live trap it can be downloaded from the page below :
how to make a live animal trap