How to get your dog to play with your pet chicken

Introduction

Training your dog to tolerate the chickens is good but to actually play with the chickens is even better. My original idea was to keep the dog from wanting to eat the chickens. The dog turned it into a game of tag. Try this at home.

By: chicknfillet

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Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Tips & Warnings:

I knew I had very sensitive dogs who loved all other animals when I started trying to build a relationship between the birds and dogs. I didn't want to ever worry about my chickens getting eaten by my own dogs.
You can do this with kittens, too. Expose the kitten to the dogs slowly and they will adapt and become best friends.
If you live in a high dog area that can harm your chickens, don't raise your chickens to not fear dogs. They will get eaten by a stray.
You must know your dog and watch over him carefully when first exposing him to the baby chicks or be ready to replace some birds.

Step1

Baby Guinea- When the chicks are little, expose them to the dog. Let the dog sniff them all over. Watch over the dog, and know your dog well. Hold the chicks in your hand at first, especially until you know how the dog will act.

Step2

Baby Chicks- Keep exposing your dog to the chicks and allow the chicks to "grow-up" with your dog. Expose them to one another often.

Step3

Osa & Sprite Eventually, when you let your chicks out to play, let the dog play along. Encourage a playful spirit with your dog around the chickens. The chickens may come up to "peck" at the dog to investigate. That helped with the playfulness of my dogs. They would jump and so would the chicks. Then the fun begins.

Step4

Fini, Osa & Zuli all together as usual Depending on the personality of your dog, watch the fun begin. One of my dogs runs away when the chickens approach but will NOT hurt the chickens. My other dog will play a game of tag with the chickens and even instigates the birds to chase her.