How To Teach Your Puppy To Be Trustworthy Around Your Poultry

This article indicates the patience and time we have to provide to train and/or retrain dogs to be chicken friendly.
An older rescue dog (called Rosa) I have took a long time to change from chicken hunter to chicken protector, about 6 months. I tied her at a distance when feeding/caring for the hens every single day, and gradually tied her closer and closer until she got the message. She now loves hearing me sing out "chooken" time as she knows we're going for a walk to the coop and she roams freely among the chicks, hens and roosters.
Unfortunately the relative that adopted her sister (I found both girls starving and ill on the highway) did not spend time normalizing her. She is bored and has to be restrained. IMHO this only exacerbates the problem. It's sad because I was a source of amusement by this person. For about 6 months I would enjoy a cup of coffee in the coop with my dog in the morning and even a glass of wine on a warm evening while chatting on my phone to make the socialization training training part of her "normal" behavior and my routine for my animals. It worked so well and we've enjoyed years of harmony (I no longer have to have a morning cuppa in the coop, yeah!!!!)

Earlier this year I fostered a dog with 8 puppies barely 2 days old. She was proclaimed a chicken killer and people were trying to kill her. Her den was in my chicken coop with a wire door partition. No longer starving she was fine. Then hens jumped the door to steal her food and the puppies grew up with these hens. The puppies needed to play as they grew but were fine with the hens. At 12 weeks old they were adopted out and their mama is still here.

Edit to add: Today if I need someone to help me catch a hen or rooster I have to put Rosa indoors because she will defend her chickens from everyone but me! It's kinda comical but my Dad didn't think so when she nipped at his heels. Once a chicken killer, always a chicken killer is not true in my case. However people should be cautious because their dog breeds and socialization differs from home to home. Also the number of dogs they have changes the dynamics.

Great info! We have ducks and a beagle. I was super worried because she LOVES chasing rabbits. Luckily since day one she has been great and we taught her that she’s not allowed in their pen and she quickly learned what she can and cannot do.

This is excellent information!
It was hard to find good information about socializing pups and chickens in such a simple and comprehensive format, and from a chicken-keeper's perspective. This new knowledge will definitely be very useful, as I am thinking about getting a puppy soon.

Great information about socializing dogs with other animals.

Lots of great advice! It always amazes me seeing dogs calmly interacting with chickens. Mine have way too high of a prey drive (mostly hunting breeds). I’m sure these tips can help others with new pups!

Not that I have managed to train my dogs not to chase my chickens...
... But this article has a lot of really good advice about dog training in general, and I can easily see this method working.

Not sure it's responsible to encourage people to have their dogs in close prox to chickens. There's no such thing as "trustworthy" in these cases, people should always have vigilence if they're determined to do this to their flock.

Excellent article! Well written and extremely informative. I will make sure to save this for any future puppy training.

Really amazing and thorough article with step by step info that is easy to follow will definitely be using this when I get a new puppy.

Excellent information & right on time as I am searching for a Maremma to join our family soon. Thank you for putting this together, wonderfully written & great videos.

Very wonderfully written and informative article!

Good article for trainings a puppy to live with chickens.

The puppies are very cute!

Very well organized article…..good guide for balancing/adding a puppy to your family

This is a great, well written article! It is real and gives such good advice to help dogs and poultry peacefully coexist! Thank you for writing it! I will be using this to help me train my unruly "teenager" lol.

Very detailed and in-depth

I've known dogs and had lots of them as friends over my life but never trained one of my own. I know and understand how valuable proper training is for any dog, and since I've kept chickens, I'm extremely aware of this, especially since neighbor dogs have attacked my chickens. I lost a beautiful rooster to untrained wandering dogs.

This article is an excellent how-to guide anyone can follow. It's amazing how easy it seems, as long as you commit to it and are consistent.

This article fills a need for many chicken keepers who love their chickens and want to keep them safe, and also love dogs and want to be confident they can trust their dogs to help keep their chickens safe.

wonderful step by step instructions on how to train our pups and save our birds Thank you for added videos too.

Well written article on a subject that many people will relate to, and the videos help.

Great article with helpful tips and clear suggestions and instructions. And of course, great doggo pics.