Dog training advice - at the end of my tether

[irishoak]

I would really appreciate any advice anyone can give me on training my dog - I'm at the end of my tether at the moment and seriously don't know what to do with her.

I got my dog nearly a year and a half ago from a family who couldn't keep up with walking her, due to their young children. She was about a year old then, so probably nearly two and a half now. It's not been an easy year - abusive marriage, husband left at the end of Jan (told to leave really), house is old and being renovated so there's a fair amount of coming and going, got cats last year (she struggled with them for a few weeks but then they clicked and have got along well ever since), and finally I got chickens a month ago. I didn't expect her to get on with the chickens immediately or anything, but I was hopeful that as she'd calmed down fairly quickly with the cats, that she would be able to adapt. She'd been a bit unsettled for a few weeks after my husband went, but had then settled back into routine with just me well. So, whilst I know it's all fair from ideal, I was hopeful.

However....the past few weeks has just been absolute non-stop barking, pulling at the lead (she's never off lead due to her loving to do a runner and living rurally with a lot of livestock about) to get to the chickens, constantly staring at them through the garden gate/fence/windows of house. I've tried to do the things that worked with getting her used to the cats (loads of treats whenever she meets them, short controlled meetings, lots of reassurance) but doesn't seem to be having any effect. The noise is driving me crackers - nearest neighbour is a bit of a distance and promises me he doesn't hear it, so at least it's just me being driven mad by it! But it's really getting to me at the moment, and it's difficult to get anything done with her constantly barking, whining, trying to get at the chickens.

I would just really love any advice about anything else I could do - I work from home online (she sits quietly napping on the sofa while I do) in the mornings, then we go for an hour walk (long lead, country lanes, although she pulls a lot so now trying a Gentle Lead Harness), afternoon is when I try and do things in the garden/house and most of the noise and commotion happens, then evenings she is usually happy to snuggle on the sofa with me, and then sleeps in the bed with me. She gets fed grain-free food in a puzzle bowl or toy. I'm also going to try doing Couch to 5k with her for a bit more exercise, but I also have admin work to catch up on in the evenings, so it's a bit of a struggle to balance it all.

I'm sorry for the long post, but I would just really appreciate any ideas or advice as it's really all getting to me at the moment. Me being a rubbish dog owner was also something that my husband used to hold over me/grind down my self-esteem with, so I get really stressed about it. I've ended up crying a lot recently just not knowing how to do well by her and deal with her.

You are not a bad dog owner. Lets get that sorted first

You have a dog who has very high drive and you are managing it really well by he sounds of it.

Because of your dogs genes it may be hard to get your dog to settle and be calm near the chickens. Is it possible in the short term to block the view to the chickens at least from the house so your dog can relax?

I would also recommend a 121 with a trainer to come and see the situation and be able to discuss a training plan specific to you. There is no doubt when you are armed with the knowledge you will feel more confident.

If you need help finding a trainer I should be able to help with that

Short term... if mostly it’s in the afternoon while you’re doing other things, could you give her something else to do then? One of her meals or something else exciting like that

Hi OP - it looks very much like your dog is some kind of beagle or hound-type cross, is that right?

If so, they can have very, very high prey drives (I own a beagle) and it can prove very difficult to control that. Sometimes it's better to manage the environment than to try and train out years of breeding. Hounds were bred to run independently away from their handlers, too, so you do need to treat them a little differently than you would, say, a Labrador or a spaniel.

With the chickens, I genuinely think your best bet would be to just block all her access to them as Polly said. Once you've blocked the visual stimulus, you can work on desensitising her to the sounds and smells of them, but be warned that you may not ever manage to stop it completely. Hounds are hunters and will kill their prey. Mine has disappeared off and re-emerged with a dead rabbit in his mouth before now!

I would also say to up the exercise a little - an hour is not much for a hound-breed. If you can't manage it yourself due to work commitments, I would see if you can get a dog-walker to come in and give her a good walk at some point in the day. Maybe mid morning would work well, then you could take her for another hour later in the day.

But honestly, you are NOT a bad dog owner. Hounds can be very challenging as they weren't bred to work alongside people, they were bred to go off and do their own thing, then when they found their "quarry", they'd bay and the human hunters would come running

If your dog is indeed a beagle mix, try looking up "The Beagle Lady" on Facebook - her name is Kellie Wynn and she gives fantastic advice to hound owners. Best of luck and feel free to PM me if you want to chat off the boards :)

I’d get a 1-1 trainer, it’s a good investment. I’d never felt the need till I brought a 5 month old standard poodle x working lab home. I was her third owner. Never known a dog with such a high prey urge. I made the mistake of lots of physical exercise, hoping to tire her and work in recall. I helped her become a fast, independent, fit dog with a high prey urge.

The session with an experienced trainer helped a lot. I learned so much. My dog always had a high prey urge but the bond we developed, my understanding of watching her body language, general obedience. Recall and more recall , we reached the point where I could call and she came straight to walk at my side (rip my lovely girl)

You’ve a head start- get a support person x

I would have thought alot of dogs would be agitated around chickens they can't get to.

It’s easy to train dogs to ignore chickens - honestly.

Thank you to posters telling me I'm not a bad dog owner - honestly, I had a bit of a cry reading that. She's my first ever dog so I'm not confident in what I'm doing, and I spent the first year with her being told how awful I was for not wanting to let her just wander off the lead (despite the fact she won't come back and will chase sheep) and for all sorts of other things.

I live in very rural Ireland, so the only trainer local is a farmer who trains sheepdogs - I'm not sure if he'd be able to help/his training would be suitable for her, but I might ask him. Otherwise it would be an hour or more away. Would an online training appointment be effective, or would face to face be best? It's a real shame there's no secure dog park or agility course or something nearby, as she would absolutely love those - she's so clever, just massively stubborn and listens when she feels like it. I don't think there are any local dog walkers either, but I could see if anyone's teenagers would like to earn a bit of pocket money taking her out - she can be a bit of a handful to walk tho, she's so strong and can really hurt my shoulders/hands sometimes.

She's some sort of Beagle mix, although I'm not sure what. The family I had her from were told she was a Kerry Beagle, but they seem a bit bigger than her...maybe mixed with a fox hound or a whippet? She could walk all day and not be tired, but at the same time, she's quite anxious/jealous? Doesn't like me to be out of her sight, wants a lot of cuddles and attention.

First step tomorrow then is to block off her view of the chicken coop and see about confining them to a part of the garden she can't see. Shame for them, as they were having a lovely time free ranging about the place, but I think you're all right, it's the best thing for now at least.

Thank you to everyone for all the advice, things don't feel quite so hopeless now!

I would block access/view of chickens as much as poss - shutting curtains, doors etc. They are so exciting to do many dogs.
If you're doing C25K do you have some proper canicross kit? A harness which doesn't stop her pulling, a good belt for you. It's much safer & more fun if you're set up right.

Online training is fab. I can not believe how well the online training has gone during the pandemic. There are so many advantages to it that many trainers are staying online.

We are using videos to consolidate, the dog can train without distractions in an environment they are happy in, there owners are relaxed and we can see the whole situation without us affecting the dogs behaviour.

I would give online training ago.

Hi again OP - please consider contacting Kellie at The Beagle Lady. She offers a free 20 minute zoom call to anyone wanting help, as well as online training (group or 1-2-1) on all sorts of problems. She really helped me understand our beagle when he was going through his teenage phase!

The clinginess is also a very common trait in beagles - they're a breed that don't tend to like being alone and that often suffer from separation anxiety.

I honestly wouldn't send my beagle out with a local teenager - a dog walker really should be insured with some basic qualifications as a minimum, especially as you say she can be a bit of a handful on the lead. The last thing you want is for the teenager to lose control of your dog.

She will calm down - if you can't get a walker, would it be possible to walk her first thing in the morning, then give her her usual walk later in the day as well? I appreciate that probably means getting up earlier, but you should find she's MUCH more chilled in the afternoons/evenings which means you'll be able to get on with stuff without being pestered

A few quick points:

1. You're not a bad owner. You're trying to do your best by your dog. Dogs are hard!
2. Hounds are particularly hard. I have beagles. I share your pain.
3. No amount of exercise tires mine out. Making them think? Wipes them out for the day. Scent games, training tricks, agility, anything. Make them think and watch them crash.
4. A farmer who trains sheepdogs is likely to be a disaster. Hounds and collies are at the opposite ends of the behavioural spectrum - collies live for pleasing their owners! - and need very different handling. Find someone who understands hounds ;)

Thanks @PollyRoulson and @sunflowersandbuttercups I'll definitely check out the online training and specifically the Beagle Lady!

I had considered taking her out for a quick 30 minute walk first thing before, but the only trouble is whichever way I go from my house there are houses with sheepdogs, which usually leads to a bit of a bark-fest between them and my dog (well, a bay-fest on her behalf) so I was reluctant to take her out too early in the morning and disturb everyone.

I add I think it unlikely you will ever acclimatise an adult scenthound to the point where you can trust them around chickens. I had chickens. It only took one slip on my part before I had a very contended beagle under the baytree happily disembowelling the chicken. They have been bred for centuries to hunt and kill prey, and are generally very effective at that.

Easy way to tire her out is to scatter feed her. Scatter her morning food make it harder and harder by increasing the area the food is in or hide it in longer grass etc as she gets better at it. If she is distracted outside start doing this indoors.

It is like valium for dogs

If you need to block her view from indoors I highly recommend Rabbit Goo window film - we’ve put it on part of our front windows to stop our dog barking at neighbours as they go to and from their house.

(Worked really well until she learned to jump on the window sill and look over the top of the film )

Feed all her meals in kongs or on lick mats. Scatter in garden too. These will wear her out more than extra walks.

I have a springer spaniel, and they are massively bird chases, built in to their DNA.
We fell into owning him by accident and already had chickens. Our chickens roam around about 1/4 of our garden, and had a decent fence to keep them in. He trashed that in the first few weeks, throwing himself at the fence trying to get to the chickens.

We rebuilt the fence dog proof. We have (3 years later) recently had to rewire the fence where he has destroyed bits of it.

We know, and accept that we can never teach the bird prey drive out of him. He will always react to the chickens.
What we can do, and have done is teach him not to jump at the fence (works about 80% of the time) and not to bark at them. He runs up and down the length of the run winding himself up if allowed.

So when he does that we send him back down the garden and make him sit/lie down away from the chicken run. When I am in the run he has to sit and wait outside the run, not running up and down. He has learned, but it is a slow process. The chickens by the way very quickly learnt that the dog can't get to them and don't care.

But we have lost 1 chicken to the dog, while he is OK round them now, he would eat one in a flash, and he is a gentle soppy family dog, good recall and trainging etc etc, but not when it comes to birds

Thank you so much to everyone - just getting to reply to this as it's been a busy day!

I've moved the chickens towards the back of the house, where they're more out of sight, and that definitely kept things calm for longer, so I'll see about fencing them in soon too. Like PPs have said, she can't ever be totally trusted with them, and I'm ready for that and accept it - I just want to get her to the point where she's not wound up/frustrated by them and barking all the time.

She enjoyed the run last night and seemed done in afterwards - I certainly was! so I'll carry on with that, and just take her for a quick half hour walk the days we don't run. Hopefully an hour and a half exercise a day will tire her out more and keep her calm.

How do people do the scatter feeding? Outside on grass, or use one of those rugs I've seen? She already has a lick mat, a Kong, a snake toy that holds dry food, and a wooden puzzle thing she has to push open with her nose (plus her usual puzzle bowl!), and I try and vary them. I'll look into more ways to wear her out mentally.

Genuinely, thank you so much to everyone who replied - I was feeling so down and stressed about how to deal with her, and today just felt so much more hopeful.

I am so glad you're feeling better!

We scatter feed in the garden as otherwise our indoor cats try and steal his food but he loves it and it's great on days when I can't get him out for a walk early doors.

Couple of things - put some electric tape around the outside of the chicken coop. She will very quickly learn to leave them alone (and it will keep foxes away).

Secondly - and a bit woowoo - but get down to her level and teach her to be calm by taking your own breathing down and being completely not reactive. I have 6 dogs and two of them, a pointer type and an Irish setter, can be manic at bedtime. Sitting on the floor with them, with them under my arms, and being really quiet calms them down in just a few minutes - no talking, no petting, just the sort of pressure and love they need to settle down.

@GingerAndTheBiscuits

If you need to block her view from indoors I highly recommend Rabbit Goo window film - we’ve put it on part of our front windows to stop our dog barking at neighbours as they go to and from their house.

(Worked really well until she learned to jump on the window sill and look over the top of the film )

I recommend rabbit goo too. We got it as our dog used to bark at the fox outside at night.