We had a near mishap with the chickens today, and I am sooo glad for obedience training.
I let them out of their hutch so they could forage for a few hours while the rain let up. When they come out, I have to put Charlie up because he has such crazy high bird drive he will (and has) bust head first through our gate to get at them.
Strider I keep out because he doesn't get obsessive with them. He will watch them and get wound up, but he won't try to get out of the paddock and kill them. Mind you, his prey drive gets VERY turned on by birds, he will kill and eat wild birds on off leash walks.
Anyway, two of our hens flew over the fence into the dog paddock. All I saw was a blur of borzoi and chickens squawking and flapping frantically. I was standing about 50 yards away on the outside of the paddock. I yelled "Strider leave it!", pretty much expecting a couple of dead chickens.
He surprised me.
Strider froze. So I called out "Strider down", and he flopped into a down instantly even with the birds running in circles around him like a couple of ninnies. Then I called out for him to stay. He held that down stay for the 10 minutes it took me to round up the chickens, go out of sight into the house, and get him some ground beef as a reward.
In light of his behavior today, we will be working on building a major strong leave it for our chickens. I didn't think he had it in him, but he proved today that he can switch it off if I ask him to. He wants to please us that much. I think there is a lot of potential for him to be able to ignore them if they come through the fence again without a direct ordering at that second. Not that I will ever trust him 100% but I think he has it in him, and chickens aren't the smartest about learning from their own mistakes.
I let them out of their hutch so they could forage for a few hours while the rain let up. When they come out, I have to put Charlie up because he has such crazy high bird drive he will (and has) bust head first through our gate to get at them.
Strider I keep out because he doesn't get obsessive with them. He will watch them and get wound up, but he won't try to get out of the paddock and kill them. Mind you, his prey drive gets VERY turned on by birds, he will kill and eat wild birds on off leash walks.
Anyway, two of our hens flew over the fence into the dog paddock. All I saw was a blur of borzoi and chickens squawking and flapping frantically. I was standing about 50 yards away on the outside of the paddock. I yelled "Strider leave it!", pretty much expecting a couple of dead chickens.
He surprised me.
Strider froze. So I called out "Strider down", and he flopped into a down instantly even with the birds running in circles around him like a couple of ninnies. Then I called out for him to stay. He held that down stay for the 10 minutes it took me to round up the chickens, go out of sight into the house, and get him some ground beef as a reward.
In light of his behavior today, we will be working on building a major strong leave it for our chickens. I didn't think he had it in him, but he proved today that he can switch it off if I ask him to. He wants to please us that much. I think there is a lot of potential for him to be able to ignore them if they come through the fence again without a direct ordering at that second. Not that I will ever trust him 100% but I think he has it in him, and chickens aren't the smartest about learning from their own mistakes.
