English Pointer and backyard chickens?
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Processing 280 Chickens – Cornish Cross & Red Bros at Pete and Jen Backyard Bird’s Mobile Poultry Processing Unit
Question by the weird girl in the corner.: English Pointer and backyard chickens?
We just got a young dog that appears to be an English Pointer, possibly a Lab/Pointer mix, we’re not sure. I would guess she’s about 3-4 months old, but pretty small because she was found starving to death on the side of the road.
Anyways, we have backyard chickens…they roam free in our backyard. This dog gets along fine with our German Shepherd mix and our cats…but when it sees the chickens it “points” them. This is concerning to me, because pointers are bird hunting dogs.
Is there any chance of socializing it enough with the chickens that it will leave them alone?
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3 Responses to English Pointer and backyard chickens?
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She’s a Pointer. That’s what she’s doing. Praise her for that, but scold her when she breaks the point and starts to chase, which puppies do because they’re immature. Pointers and Labs are soft-mouthed; she’s not too likely to bite down on a chicken, but it’s best to teach her, from the beginning, that chasing is not allowed. Take her out in the yard ONLY on a check cord, so when she starts a chase you can stop her: shout a command word… “Halt!” perhaps, and take up the slack on the cord so she hits the collar hard. You don’t have to jerk it, and she doesn’t have to have a choke chain on: she should have a wide flat buckle collar on so she doesn’t get hurt. Its just the sudden shock of being stopped that will be the negative reinforcement.
Jenny Manyteeth
March 30, 2012 at 12:58 am
The great thing about English Pointers is they were bred to find and point but not to catch birds. They have had all aggression bred out of them for this reason. So even though they are a hunting dog the do get along well with other animals, especially if they are raised around them. But even still I would be careful. Labs were bred to go and grab a bird to retrieve it. And pointing is a hunting instinct so its probably not best to let her point the chickens because this means she sees them as prey rather than another member of the family. Probably a lot of supervised time around the chickens will help. And even though its super difficult to break a Pointer’s focus, try to not let her focus on the chickens. Maybe if you can get her to play with a toy while in the presence of the chickens.
Jenny
March 30, 2012 at 1:18 am
You need help of a dog trainer. Get expert help from PURINA.COM
manish
March 30, 2012 at 2:13 am