My drake is dog aggressive!

[Funsizeracing]

My drake has gotten really aggressive towards the dogs. He won't let my Maltese off the porch to pee and he chases all three pitbulls across the yard. The dogs ignore the ducks and could really care less until this little guy starts biting and flapping his wings chasing them all around. They actually seem scared of him! I'm worried one may accidently hurt him out of fear.
Any ideas on how to calm my drake down? I know he's just trying to protect his woman but I don't want him to get hurt.

 

[newbyduckmom]

Yikes. I wish I had a suggestion. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. We have dachshunds, and keep a fence securely between ducks and dogs as it wouldn't be pretty if they got near each other. I do have a hen that went after a rabbit in the yard a few weeks ago...then the other five ducks followed. Wish I had it on video. It was truly funny. Poor rabbit.

 

[Amiga]

Can you step back a bit and look at how the environment is set up? Do the dogs have to go near the ducks to do their business? Are there visual cues that the drake is using to determine his territory? Can you establish some kind of boundary obvious to duck and dog that may help reduce the conflict?

My ducks don't make any moves toward the cat unless she gets within five feet of them - that seems to be their comfort zone. She is a brilliant cat, and while I don't leave it all up to her, if the ducks begin to lower their heads in her direction, she just calmly moves away - no aggression in return. Love that cat!

I do work on keeping them the safe distance apart (sometimes things just don't align themselves, like when the ducks are coming around a corner of the house the same time the cat is rounding the corner from the opposite direction), and don't just leave it up to them. But I can have the ducks out for a walk while the cats are out without worrying.

We needed to adjust the use of the yard at one point since the cats were not used to sharing the yard. So when I lay out fences and duck areas I try to think about how the cats are going to move around and still have some territory of their own. One way to do this is to keep the ducks out of certain areas at certain times of day.

 

[SkyWarrior]

Good fences make good ducks!

 

[Miss Lydia]

I can tell you from experience this will get nasty, my drakes haven't been a problem but my gander, my dogs have been bullied by him for a number of years and so far they have not done anything till 2 weeks ago when my med size mix breed heard my gander knocking at the back door for his bread, she must have stuck her head out the doggie door and brabbed him by the chest, all the freathers where inside the house and I thought for sure he was mortally wounded, she had pulled the feathers out by the roots and he had a pretty big wound on his chest, I am just thankful he has so many feathers and that is basically what she got in her mouth, They are now separated and will Not be together unless I am with them. He is 41/2 years old and she is 4 so they have been together most of their lives, I think she had just had enough of him and his being a bully. Please don't let this get out of hand I am so thankful I had this warning before it was too late.