My German Shepherd wont stop chasing and eating Chickens!!!

[Mackey1617]

Hi! I was wondering if y'all had any insight on this. My german shepherd loves to chase my chickens.. and she has also killed a few. We have wanted to tie one around her neck, but she eats them totally besides a few feathers before we can get to them. Well, she attacked our last rooster and we tried to save him but he sadly passed away this morning. We are wanting to tie it around her neck, but does that work??

We really like my GS but she just can not stop chasing them if they get out of their area we have blocked off for them. We also just got a puppy recently that will help her tremendously once he gets big enough. Also I work with my GS alot and play with her, just she can't seem to kick the chicken chasing.

Also we are going to secure the area more for them, so they can't get out. They have a secure coop and outside run that is enclosed but during the day they get access to a garden area the dog cannot get into, but sometimes the chickens are foraging and go through the gate (which we will be adding chicken wire to soon!)

Sorry for the word vomit. Just trying to give as much info as I can that I think might be asked!
Basically does tying the chicken around her neck actually help her stop chasing and attacking them?

 

[SmiYa0126]

Hi, can you leash her? I have a dog with a high prey drive and he's always leashed.

 

[ChikaInu]

What?! Tying a chicken around her neck? How on earth is that going to help with anything? She will probably be delighted.

German shepherds have a high prey drive and now she's discovered the joy of chicken chasing, you need to keep her on a leash until you have secured the area for the chickens. After that, if you want. you can try to do some training but I still wouldn't trust her around loose fowl again.
Risk is that the puppy will join in the chase too if you allow it to continue.

 

[Chicken Heel]

Very unlikely that the dog will cease and desist in chasing / killing chickens. Once they taste that blood, its like a drug to them.

 

[16 and me]

What?! Tying a chicken around her neck? How on earth is that going to help with anything? She will probably be delighted.

German shepherds have a high prey drive and now she's discovered the joy of chicken chasing, you need to keep her on a leash until you have secured the area for the chickens. After that, if you want. you can try to do some training but I still wouldn't trust her around loose fowl again.
Risk is that the puppy will join in the chase too if you allow it to continue.

100%
My daughter has a dog with a high prey drive. It never leaves. When you tjink they've made improvement, they have not. It is too instinctual. My dog does not, but when he is with her, if she even gets excited about seeing a rabbit - my dog suddenly gives chase.
The new puppy absolutely will pick this up from the current alpha unless the GSD is not permitted near the chickens. I wish you well, this is tough. I have to keep both dogs on a leash or inside whenever the one with prey drive is visiting.

 

[Bawkbok]

Ditto to all previous comments. That dog can never be trusted around your chickens and will absolutely "train" puppy on what the chickens are for --- dinner!! Not yours; theirs. GS's have a strong temperament as you know. While all dogs are trainable, it's difficult to train the natural instinct out of them. Perhaps try putting the GS on a tie out run that works sort of like a clothes line pole. You can try a tree tie out where one end is secured around a tree and the line tie out can be purchased in different lengths up to 100 ft I believe. This will provide 360 ability to run and when they hit the limit of the line, they will know. The other thought is to hire a professional trainer willing to work on site with you and your dog. That would be costly. Just depends on how important it is that dog is out with the chickens.

 

[Apis mellifera]

Keep the dog and the chickens separated or get a good shock collar and teach the dog to stop. The behavior is unacceptable and can be stopped.

 

[fowltemptress]

What?! Tying a chicken around her neck? How on earth is that going to help with anything? She will probably be delighted.

I've heard this, and often. I was raised with it, actually. It's an old-timey training myth that a dog will quit killing chickens if it's forced to live with the corpse around its neck until it rots off. My family did abandon their belief in it in my adulthood, but I still come across people who still believe it works. Thankfully it seems a less prevalent idea now due to better understanding and access to proper training information.

My dogs were chicken (and rabbit) killers. I trained them out of killing chickens, but I will never trust them anywhere near my rabbits. It's a matter of understanding your dog, how high it's prey drive is and what triggers that drive, and how much of a "people pleaser" your dog is. I couldn't answer any of those questions for you. A good dog trainer would be able to assess your dog and help to understand what are reasonable expectations. The trick to a well trained dog, honestly, is to lower your expectations to the point that the dog can meet them, so it is important to understand where the limit is in what you can expect. I was able to train my own dogs to be trustworthy around chickens by keeping them on a leash and pulling them away from the birds every time they showed an interest by turning towards the birds or even looking in their direction. I gave them a small treat any time they turned away from a bird of their own accord - it's actually pretty funny seeing the extent to which my dogs will avoid being too close to a bird now. A chicken will walk right up to their faces and my boys will practically be doing yoga contortions to avoid eye contact with the bird. The same technique applied to the rabbits never worked, because the dogs literally could not tear their attention away from them, so I accepted that is beyond the realms of reasonable expectations and fort knoxified the rabbit enclosure against my dogs.

It's also helpful to know your breed and general behavior traits within that breed. My dogs are cairns, so I did expect training them to ignore birds would be easier than training them to ignore small mammals, so it wasn't like a disappointing shock to me to give up on that goal. Of course, there's always individual personalities that go against the grain - for instance, my last terriers, Jeff and Rook, lived freely amongst my rabbits and guinea pigs, but in the beginning they were never left together unsupervised until I was thoroughly convinced of their trustworthiness. Some dogs never earn that level of trust, which is fine; again, it's about adjusting those expectations. I've always heard German shepherds have an extremely healthy prey drive, and it sounds like yours lives up to that reputation, so even if you seek out the best training available it's probably best to keep those expectations at floor level and plan to keep dog and birds separate. Good luck!

 

[User690263]

Not trying to start conflict, but in my opinion, putting a dog with a high prey drive in a situation with chickens (prey) is just setting the dog up for failure, especially since you haven't mentioned any preventative measures (other than tying a chicken around her neck, which I'm not quite sure what that would accomplish). If I were in your situation, I would
a) make sure that the chickens are in a secure enclosure, or
b) have the dog tied up/restrained somehow when she is around the chickens.
As someone previously mentioned, you can look up how to train a dog to stop going after chickens, or you could get a professional trainer.
Hope this helps!

 

[User690263]

Not trying to start conflict, but in my opinion, putting a dog with a high prey drive in a situation with chickens (prey) is just setting the dog up for failure, especially since you haven't mentioned any preventative measures (other than tying a chicken around her neck, which I'm not quite sure what that would accomplish). If I were in your situation, I would
a) make sure that the chickens are in a secure enclosure, or
b) have the dog tied up/restrained somehow when she is around the chickens.
As someone previously mentioned, you can look up how to train a dog to stop going after chickens, or you could get a professional trainer.
Hope this helps!

Here's a resource that you might find helpful
https://search.app?link=https://wag..._campaign=aga&utm_source=agsadl2,sh/x/gs/m2/4