Training A Chicken Killing Dog

baymule

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Our property is fully fenced with a 16' gate at the front-offset truck and trailer length. There are too many strays, coyotes and wandering other people's dogs. Our next neighbor on the corner has a French bulldog that he adores and he lets Pepe out when he gets home. Pepe makes a beeline for our place. Were the gate to be open, Pepe would be here, chasing chickens, sheep and getting mauled by our dogs. As it is, Pepe and Trip play, each on their respective sides of the fence. They both run like mad up and down the fence barking and having a doggie good time. Trip looks forward to it every day and I've even seen him up at the front waiting on neighbor to get home so Pepe can come out to play.

Several days ago, a neighbor a couple of miles away called, telling how he came home to his 2 dogs covered in blood. He searched and found a dog laying in his shop, unable to get up. He described the dog to us and we knew whose dog it was. Upshot of it, Neighbor #1 had a buried electric fence. His dogs stay in it, but any other dog or any other animal can walk over it onto the property. Neighbor #2 rushed over, his dog was so weak from blood loss that he could barely give his tail a few wags when he saw his Daddy. We loaded the dog in his truck and off to the vet he went. His dog is old, was chewed up badly and last we heard he was still at the vet on IV, and just starting to eat and drink. Neighbor had been driving around looking for his dog and was relieved to find him, even if he was chewed up.

Some people have the buried electric fence, personally, I want a strong wire fence that will keep even the chickens on their side of the fence. Our fence is 2"x4"x48" woven wire. We fenced the whole 8 acres in it and cross fences too. While you might not want to fence the whole property, you might fence everything but the driveway and front yard. Give Max the rest. Our Trip jumps the fence. He only jumped OUT one time and that was to go play with Pepe. We had a Come-To-Jesus meeting every day for several weeks where we walked the property line fence with me shaking the fence between every T-post and scolding Trip. He hung his head, squinted his eyes and grinned. It was funny, but Trip didn't think so. LOL

That is excellent training that you are doing with Max. He is a young dog, it will take time. He will be a puppy until he is past 2 years old, then he will settle down quite a bit. He sounds brilliant smart and needs to stay busy. It is good that he has toys to play with.
 

NH Homesteader

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My uncle had a dog that figured out you just have to take the hit and then you're free. Think it depends on the dog. My problem with it is it doesn't keep other things out.
 

sumi

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Max looks like a sweetheart and it's great to hear that he is responding so well to the training already. I couldn't help but wonder why the previous owners didn't make the little bit of effort.. But their loss and your gain :) He's a lovely dog!
 

milkmansdaughter

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@sumi, Max was dog number 4 at the last place. He's still very young, high energy, and was chasing the chickens. He's well socialized, but I think, maybe more than they were ready for. They honestly seemed very sad to see him go, and said the kids were all tore up about it, but they seemed relieved as well.
 

sumi

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It sounds like they bit off a little more than they can chew with him, but things worked out wonderfully for him. Which I'm sure is a relief for them!
 

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