Last Updated on September 9, 2020 by Michelle
Some days homesteading is oh-so-hard. If you’re trying to train a dog to be off leash around free-ranging chicken or ducks, you may feel you’re facing an insurmountable challenge. I can’t promise success, but I can offer hope. It probably won’t be easy. It probably won’t be quick…
But you’re a homesteader. You never expect quick or easy. You know good things require hard work. So read on…
Here’s the low-down of our difficult, time-consuming, but oh-so-worth-it efforts to train our dog to not chase chickens. (Meet Bixby in the video at the end, or just click here.)
It was a colder-than-typical New England April. In fact, I had joked that the best way to hide the Easter eggs would be use store-bought ones and simply lay them on the snow.
With pending spring seeming so far away, we longed to pretend it had arrived. It was the perfect time for her third homesteading dream to come to fruition. She had already turned over and cared for an amazing vegetable garden and had planted many fruit trees last spring.
This spring would be a time for livestock. But we would start small. While she was preparing for her BHAG (our family’s code word for that really big dream: a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal) of adopting a dairy cow, we adopted rabbits and chicken.
If you have a rooster, please read this post so you can avoid the awful mistake that I made.
And read this one if you’d like to meet not only the cow she did soon adopt, but also that cow’s sweet calf.
As for Bix, I wish I could train him to not chase a wild animal. Find out what we did after he chased a skunk here in this post. (You might wanna pin that one right here… you never know when you might be glad you did.)
We named the rooster Mr. Darcy–hoping for the best with his overbearing personality, hoping he was surely a nice rooster who was simply misunderstood. (Mind you, we have had many more learning experiences with roosters since that day we first added poultry to our farm.) Mr. Darcy was definitely a protector to his hens, which was why we put up with him (and the fact that he is a handsome fellow).
While Mr. Darcy would probably have fought off a chicken hawk or given his own life to save his hens from a prowling fox, there was one factor on our homestead that we didn’t have the foresight to see as a nuisance to our chicken. Bixby–our sweet, protective, salt-and-pepper Labradoodle–gave Mr. Darcy and his 3 hens quite a run for their money on their first encounter. While Mr. Darcy did deter our labradoodle from snatching up a hen at first sight, everyone got so frazzled and upset, mainly me, fearful that one of our wonderful egg-providing newest farm members would be lunch for Bixby before she even provided one egg lunch for us.
We suddenly realized we needed to do the impossible: train a dog to not chase chicken.
Sign up for my Resource Library for our recipe for our homemade peanut butter dog bones–our dogs’ favorite dog treats ever. Just click below, sign up, and you’ll soon have treats on hand that will make your pup wanna please you and–hopefully–leave your birds alone.
And order your dog’s favorite training treats at my favorite online dog food store and take 15% off your order–every order, anytime–with coupon code RESTED15.
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So we searched the web and asked online homestead support groups for help in training Bixby to love our hens as much as we did. But when we searched topics such as “train a dog to be off leash” we didn’t find any help overcoming a temptation as exciting to a dog as a chicken chase. So we did our best to create our own training program. I would never say it was easy to train a dog to leave chickens alone. It took us over a month of daily training sessions, and many times we thought we’d never see success. But, with patience, this is the process that worked for us:
1. Show him she’s your friend.
Stand with the dog on a tight leash, seated on a “stay” command, by your side. (Lupine leashes are hands-down my absolute favorite dog leashes.) Have someone else catch a chicken. (It’s important to do this OUT of the dog’s range of vision. NEVER let him see you chase a hen.) Then have them approach you and your dog, all the while speaking kindly to the hen and petting her. In the beginning, you’ll probably have to keep a tight, constant grip on your dog, making him stay seated as the chicken-holding friend approaches. We spent a good week or two on this step alone, advancing a little closer each day until Bixby would stay seated (without a tight hold on the leash) while both of us talked sweetly to the hen and petted her, in front of Bixby.
After he was rather bored with this step, we scooped up hens randomly (still never letting Bixby see us ever chase a hen) and walked with them in our arms inside the house, talking sweetly to them the whole time, while Bixby followed us curiously. Our point was to let Bixby know that the hens were a permanent, valued, new addition to our homestead, not wild birds in his right-to-chase jurisdiction.
2. Show him they’re allowed to roam where they please.
Then we started leashing Bixby and walking him to wherever the chicken were free-ranging. We always kept him on a very tight leash. At this stage, he still would have chased after the chicken in a heart beat, if he had enough leash room to do so.
3. Show him they are rather boring.
When he was ready to do so without us having to continually choke him with the leash, we took him close to the roaming chicken and had him sit outside of their coop as they roamed in and out and close to him. At this point, he was starting to get bored with the whole chicken exercise and we finally knew we were making headway.
4. Show him their house is rather boring.
He did gain a little interest again when we stepped things up a notch by taking him INSIDE the chicken coop. We were always certain to make him stay seated outside the door of the coop until we gave him the “okay” command to step inside with us. We only had to do this step a few days in a row before he got bored with it too and didn’t even want to go in the coop.
5. Give him a little freedom.
After a full month’s worth of almost daily training, we decided Bixby was ready for a test. We called him to accompany us outside, intentionally walking to the area where we knew the chickens were grazing. We kept talking to him soothingly and telling him to stay with us once the hens were in his sight. He started to jog towards them, but with our stern “come” command he returned to us. A few days of working with him and keeping a very close eye on him when he was in the vicinity of the chickens, and the training was complete.
He even stood outside the coop, with chicken walking nearby, and simply watched them go, almost in a guard-dog way.
I have all these training points laid out in an easy-to-read, printable page for you over in my Resource Library. You’re gonna need to refer to them often, so head on over there and print them and keep them in an obvious place in your home. For us, that’s the front of our fridge. (And yeah, I gave up long ago trying to keep the front of the fridge pretty.)
You’ll want to make sure everyone understands the training process so everyone is on the same page, giving your dog the same message.
You do need to subscribe to SoulyRested and then you’ll immediately be assigned a password to access a slew of info in my Resource Library.
Today, he barely even seems to notice that the chicken are around. And we are so glad to once again be able to allow our sweet Labradoodle full-range of the homestead with no worries of any fowl play. 😉
The Night Bixby Met a Skunk
Of course along with Bixby’s ability to roam the homestead as he pleases also comes the possibility of getting SKUNKED. Read about the worst night of my dog-owning life–and the solutions that finally saved us!–right here.
I hope these techniques work for you! They do take a lot of perseverance and patience, but it’s so worth it now, to watch our labradoodle actually guard our chickens and just watch them mosey around in front of him. Remember, if you’d like my easy-as-pie dog training treat recipe, just subscribe to my e-newsletter at the end of this page.
So, can you train a dog to be off leash around chicken? Yes, at least in our situation, with our labradoodle, yes. I realize all breeds are different. In fact, all dogs are different. But I hope our successful process works for you too. And remember to follow along below if you’d like my recipe for the best homemade training treats ever. (Oh, and the the resource library also includes a handy printable page of this 5-step training process–How to Break a Dog From Chasing Chickens.)
In all toil there is profit. Proverbs 14:23
Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.
Meet Bixby & see him “perform” for his absolute favorite treats–>
Bixby’s favorite items that we order at Raw Paws:
These chicken & potato treats are the ones in the video above that I give Bixby every day.
Venison Jerky Bites are awesome. I give him a whole one for an extra special treat or break them into 3 or 4 pieces for training.
Freeze Dried Chicken Necks–Oh my WORD he seriously loves these!
And I sprinkle this organic sea kelp on his breakfast every day. The trace minerals are super good for him and–bonus!–this gives him good breath (it really works!)
Remember to use coupon code RESTED15 and take 15% off your order–every order, anytime.
And here are more dog products I love:
You’ll love the doggie treats, toys, and training items Bixby and I share on this page.
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Our dalmatian was overly interested in the baby chicks so we kept him tightly controlled when he was near the brooder. When they were old enough to go in the coop, the Dal would aggressively poke at the chicks with his nose against the hardware cloth. I was worried that once both chicks and dog had freedom to roam, I would end up with a dead hen.
When the hens were old enough to go out on pasture, we got a feather-net style electric fence and charged it with a very weak current. Hens on one side, dog on the other. The dog poked at the hens like he always did, and in his mind, that chicken gave his soft wet nose the worst bite of his life.
Now he won’t go anywhere near the chickens. They roam freely all over the backyard and the dog maintains his distance, just in case one of them wants to give him another Godzilla bite on the nose.
Wow. That’s an interesting way to train your dalmatian! So you only had to do this one time, and no problems since? Your technique sure took a lot less time than mine! Glad you now have happy hens and a smart dog!
We have done a lot of similar steps with our Hemi a GSD, she is now only interested at night when she want to herd them to the coop.
That’s great that your dog can herd the hens with no worries on your part that she’ll get too interested in one on any given night. Our 3 hens and 1 rooster always come in to the coop every evening, around 6, like clockwork. We just go down, make sure all are accounted for, and close up. What does “GSD” refer to?
German Shepard Dog. It has taken us a lot of work to get her that far! That herding instinct she has, plus puppy playfulness has led to several losses. She’s just over a year old now and proven mostly trustworthy😉. We still watch her closely in the evening as she does “her job”.
Hello. Just came upon your blog through a link from The Prairie Homestead. This is exactly the advice I was looking for! We have 4 new hens – our first chickens – and a 1 yr old black lab, who is also our first dog. AND..we live in rural New England…AND I homeschool my son. AND I’m a Jesus girl!! I will definitely be following your blog. Blessings.
Ellen, so nice to “meet” you! Especially with all we seem to have in common. My daughter saw your comment and pointed out if you only had 4 girls we’d have to consider ourselves “twins.” Are you also new to New England and/or the rural life? I’m a native Delawarean/suburbia girl now loving living the simple life in the country. Thanks for following along on my mishaps and ramblings–glad you found me!
So funny how many things we seem to have in common, except I have 2 boys. I am fairly new to New England and definitely new to the rural life. We moved into our antique cape (complete with old barn with sagging roof) in New Hampshire a year ago. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago but spent the most recent 9 years in CT. I am loving the country life and trying to simplify. I am so looking forward to following your adventures.
Trying a very similar routine with our youngest boy, Beau. Very much hoping to break him of his excitement over my feathered babies. It’s very helpful to know that this has worked for you(especially with a breed that would likely have a similar prey drive as him), as this is new territory for us (our older mastiff boy is too lazy to bother with any of the littler critters and didn’t really require much training beyond “this is a chicken, it’s mine. Don’t eat it.”).
So, was your dog penned or tethered the rest of the time during this training season?
He was, much to his dislike, kept inside at all times when the chicken were free-ranging. Some days, for his sanity, or if we didn’t have time to take him for a walk, we’d put the chicks away and let him have his outdoor time.