Hinotori
Sustainability Master
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2011
- Messages
- 5,839
- Reaction score
- 12,931
- Points
- 373
- Location
- On the foot of Mt Rainier
Predatory behavior cannot be suppressed, it must be redirected and the need for predatory behavior must be met in an acceptable way.
Redirection is very effective - just think of how border collies arrest predatory behavior sequence at eye or stalk, or how catch dogs stop the predatory sequence at grab-bite.
Punishment just makes them avoid *getting caught.* There's a great little book on predation substitute training called Hunting Together by Simone Mueller. It works!
So because I encouraged my german shepherd to kill rats from a fairly young age, she made for a better chicken protector and safe with them.
She'd actually drop a rat rather than risk biting a chicken. Silkies are not as helpful to dogs as they think they are being.
I had to teach her to look up for hawks but she hated them. Hated the starlings and blackbirds as well. Would catch them in the silkie pens and eat them.
I've had to work with my aussies to ignore the chickens unless asked to help pen them. They have to have jobs to get them to not fixate.