May 4, 2013
Well, it happened! We got a dog.
My husband has been wanting to get two dogs for a while in order to keep the children & chickens safe and so they could have companionship. I have been quite reluctant.
The other day, a friend of ours found a puppy on the side of the road and my husband volunteered to take it. She is a beagle/shepherd mix and is as cute and sweet as can be.
This is my first dog ever so I am clueless. We got some puppy chow at the store and she did not eat any. I think it is just because of the stress but because she wasn’t eating, I looked up some things…including the ingredients on the back [yikes!].
Grain, grain, some meat ‘mix’, and more grain. Did someone miss the memo that dogs are carnivores? Hmmm.
She doesn’t like it at all but guess what – the chickens do! Imagine that…
I am going to try to put her on a more natural diet of meat & veggies little by little. Right now, she is loving milk and today started eating a bit of the puppy chow. I am going to try to add in some egg, meat, and veggies as she seems to have more of an appetite.
My sister-in-law is a self-taught dog trainer (her grandmother was a wonderful dog trainer) and has volunteered to come over and help us out in that area.
We want the dog to be able to be around the chickens without eating (or messing with) them and I do not want her in the garden. I would also like to train her to poop in the woods and train her to stay on our property so she does not need to be fenced in. I’m sure this is a tall order but I figure you have to at least start with a goal 🙂
After I fed her this morning, I went to let the chickens out of the coop. I let her come into the run with me, just to see what would happen, and she did great. She stayed on my heels as I gave the chickens our compost and when I came out, she followed me out. I hope it stays this easy 😉
This afternoon, she followed me to the garden. As long as I stayed on the path, she didn’t go into the garden. She did try to climb into one of the raised beds but I took her front paws out, told her no, and she laid at my feet while I picked kale & spinach. I think keeping her out of the garden will be harder (at least not digging it up) than teaching her how to protect the chickens, mainly because it is such a large area. We’ll see.
Anyone with chickens & a dog have any tips for us?
Gardening Without... 
Aww.. she is a cutie!
What a cute pup… Love her. We trained our dogs from puppies and when we got chickens it was pretty easy to train them not to bug the chickens, stay on our property, and not dig in my garden so I think it can be done. We have a terrier mix who we still have to work on him coming back when he chases after a rabbit 😉 I wish you the best with the pup it is a lot of fun to train a pup, watch them grow, and see your kids with them. Our pups are such a joy I am excited for you 🙂
thx 🙂 I need to get my SIL over here to start training her. She comes into the run whenever we do (which is multiple times a day) and today, I was refilling the chicken feeder so I had the door to the coop open. She did not jump in the coop – just watched what was going on. I try to give her lots of praise when she follows me OUT of the run.
she also pooped in the garden today and walked all over my corn mounds 😛 i’m optimistic she can be trained though 🙂