Dog chasing sheep.

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Elliegazzellie

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Hi
I have a dog which I rehomed from a rehoming centre and it has become apparent that he is a sheep chaser. He is only a small terrier, however is very fast and has actually brought sheep down. Luckily he did no damage as we managed to get there in time, and he only has a small mouth! We have resorted to keeping him on an extendable lead as we don't want him to chase a sheep again and risk being shot. He has a very strong chase instinct and will become pretty tunnel visioned, and unaware of anything around him when he see's something worth chasing.
I was just wondering if anyone had any training methods or ideas that they have found successful for a dog with problems like this?
 
I'd look up a good trainer in your area who can identify what stimulates/works for your dog and take it from there, it's not something that can be cured easily over a forum without seeing his behaviour.
As you're aware, he risks getting a lead injection if he does it again so please be very careful x
 
Elliegazellie,

you can find yourself a counsellor, OR, you can find your local, and hopefully friendly, sheep farmer, wait until he's lambing, and has a good strong ewe with a couple of lambs, within some hurdles, and then put your dog in with her.

She'll give him a battering, and the only damage to him, will be his pride. He may well, then learn some respect for sheep! Failing that, avoid taking him anywhere near sheep.

If your small dog has managed to pull a sheep down, then it could only have done so by making contact with flesh. Dog bites are costly to treat with A/Bs and can ruin a valuable carcass.

Alec.
 
keep your dog on a lead! go do some training! and a bit more training. and get an electric collar for times in need. and never let the dog off if there are sheep within a mile. othrwise the farmer is within his rights to shoot it or make you have it PTS. the choices are yours!
 
Alec Swan said:
good strong ewe with a couple of lambs, within some hurdles, and then put your dog in with her.

She'll give him a battering, and the only damage to him, will be his pride. He may well, then learn some respect for sheep!
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ofcourseyoucan said:
get an electric collar for times in need
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Disagree strongly with both of these for dogs that are already chasers. You can go from a dog that chases sheep to a dog that kills the thing it perceives as hurting it.

Putting in a pen with a ewe can work with pups but with an adult dog with strong chase instincts it's likely to end in a bloody, mess :(

I'm an advocate of ECs for recall (with a treat) but completely against them for punishment - that is NOT what they are designed for and to use them for such is the reason they are close to being banned!

OP get in touch with Jim Greenwood - he's fantastic with working dogs. He has a website with testimonials and stuff. Lurcher link is another good site that has a lot off terrier/working dog people on.

Edit - you can stop a dog that chases but once they have actually caught a sheep and had a taste for blood it is very likely that they will do it again and again. I think your only option really is to keep the dog on a lead :(
 
Alec Swan said:
you can find yourself a counsellor, OR, you can find your local, and hopefully friendly, sheep farmer, wait until he's lambing, and has a good strong ewe with a couple of lambs, within some hurdles, and then put your dog in with her.

She'll give him a battering, and the only damage to him, will be his pride. He may well, then learn some respect for sheep! Failing that, avoid taking him anywhere near sheep. .
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Ditto this - we did it to all of ours and none of them even attempted chasing a sheep afterwards however I ALWAYS keep them on leads when walking through a field of sheep, even if I know I can walk them through off the lead. It's just not worth the risk
 
zalacca said:
Ditto this - we did it to all of ours and none of them even attempted chasing a sheep afterwards however I ALWAYS keep them on leads when walking through a field of sheep, even if I know I can walk them through off the lead. It's just not worth the risk
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Again only works if they haven't already had a taste for blood (and even then not always)... And a pretty barbaric method TBH - poor sheep and lambs. I've done it with a pup and a ewe on its own but wouldn't do it with a ewe and lambs :( :( :(
 
I really feel for you. This is exactly the problem I had with a border collie I got from a rescue centre, so I know what you are going through & what a difficult road you have ahead.

We live in the snowdonia national park & can't go anywhere without encountering sheep, our property is surrounded, so this made our life even more stressful.

I was advised by 'helpful' people to put Toby in a pen with a nasty horned ram, but my logic told me that this could end up making the whole thing 10 times worse, so I didn't go down that route. I couldn't even be tempted to think about an electric collar as they are banned in Wales.

I got myself a trainer who came here & worked one on one. We made huge progress with the other issues Toby had. I fenced our boundaries & bought some of our own sheep to train with, but I just couldn't get through to him when he was in sheep mode, although he never actually made contact with them, it was the herding & chasing he enjoyed.

I found it impossible to exercise Toby enough on lead, I was out with him 4 hours a day, 4 stressful, worrying, painful hours, in all weathers, but it wasn't enough. I tried lunge lines, but he broke so many when he spotted sheep & then he'd be loose. He pulled me over & I hit my head on a rock - it was getting dangerous for all concerned.

In the end it got too much for me. I was always in fear of him being shot, so I had to take him back.

Sorry that wasn't much help to you. Other than getting a good trainer I have no other advice. I tried a general trainer for difficult dogs & also a trainer who works collies with sheep. They both ended up telling me that Toby may never be able to break the habit & I could have to keep him on a lead for the rest of his life. I didn't want that for him or me.

I now have a lab, who I got at 8 weeks old, so have been able to manage his training from the start. Ever since I got him he has come into the fields with me & the livestock. He is now safe with horses, cattle, chickens & sheep. He sometimes takes a few steps of chase when the sheep are moving at speed but a well timed Leave It & Come are all that is required. Dylan is rarely on a lead, even on the mountain with sheep all around - bliss!

Good luck & I hope things work out better for you.
 
before electric collars were banned in wales i borrowed one for a sheep chaser, it was brilliant, i let her go in a field of sheep and everytime she chased one she got a zap!.

it worked a treat i think she got four zaps the first day, we repeated this the next day and she tried once, got zapped and has never looked back.
it solved a huge problem ( we have sheep, sheep all around us, it was a nightmare)in a very short space of time, you could spend months and a lot of money on behavioural therapy, or it could be sorted out in a very short space of time, they are now banned here in wales, silly you can't give them a static shock for chasing sheep but you are allowed to shoot them!!
 
Another one for the sticking him in a pen with a ewe/ram. We had an adult springer who was a sheep worrier which became a huge problem when we moved to the middle of sheep farming country. Took him to a friend's farm and put him in a pen with a tup... got a good telling off and never ever looked at another sheep again till the day he died!

Whether you agree with it or not, it worked for us and I wouldn't hesitate to use this method again if I had the same problem.
 
Alec Swan said:
Elliegazellie,

you can find yourself a counsellor, OR, you can find your local, and hopefully friendly, sheep farmer, wait until he's lambing, and has a good strong ewe with a couple of lambs, within some hurdles, and then put your dog in with her.

She'll give him a battering, and the only damage to him, will be his pride. He may well, then learn some respect for sheep! Failing that, avoid taking him anywhere near sheep.

If your small dog has managed to pull a sheep down, then it could only have done so by making contact with flesh. Dog bites are costly to treat with A/Bs and can ruin a valuable carcass.

Alec.
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have witnessed what Alec Swan is suggesting, many times, and by god does it work! and lets face it, if it was a wild dog (as so many bunny huggers like to say) this is how they learn what not to mess with.
it sounds terrible to the faint hearted, but lets be realistic, i think you would agree its a million times better than your dogs fate if a farmer catches it, two words. shot. gun.

having had several sheep attacks last season, i would suggest you keep the hell away from any sheep and keep your animal tightly under control around any livestock, it only has to go on a jaunt to take on cattle and kick wounds in small dogs are often fatal.
 
Please, please, no one read this and think they should run off and use electric without the guidance of someone who knows what they are doing and when and with the correct schooling in what circumstance to use it - I am glad it worked that way for you on your dog, Gwen, but you do that on the wrong dog and you will blow it's brains and make it worse.
I agree that zapping a dog willy nilly without even looking at the root cause of the behaviour is the reason why some people want them banned :(

Also agree that putting in a sheep with a pen as pups or smaller dogs might work, but again, it depends on the dog. The wrong dog will just go and go and go until they kill even the toughest tup.

That's why I suggested a trainer, they can gauge what sort of dog you have and what is most likely to work rather than blindly over a forum.

I live in an area full of sheep and I just keep my (very active, adult) dogs on the lead, I will not risk it, and it's not a huge deal.
 
CaveCanem said:
I live in an area full of sheep and I just keep my (very active, adult) dogs on the lead, I will not risk it, and it's not a huge deal.
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i wish all dog owners were of your standard i really do.

last year on the estate we came across a ewe, which we presumed was dead. she wasnt, torn apart, yes. dead, no. it was by far the saddest and most disgusting thing i have seen. and the fact that it was positioned where the owner of the dog responsible could not have missed it, yet they chose to do nothing, really shocked me.

basically, as i forgot to say in my last post, it can be incurable. so be prepared to e responsible for your dog and not allow it the chance to be anywhere near livestock, let alone do any damage.
 
Not sure what part of the world the OP is in, but if you're anywhere near Somerset try Angela Stockdale. Years back she had a herd of old, very dog-savvy sheep that would front up to a dog and would work as a collective.
 
In my humble experience as someone who works with sheep and dogs, once a dog has bitten a sheep, it is REALLY difficult to train that out of a dog.
You mention the 'selectively deaf' incidence with your terrier, this is not uncommon when they are 'hunting' albeit a sheep, bunny or fox.
My advice would be to keep the little dog on a long leash and don't subject it to the sheep, which it sees as fair game and you and the owner of the sheep will sleep soundly at night.
I should hate to see you lose the little terrier for the sake of a leash.
Good luck
Bryndu
 
One thing to realise that chase is self perpetuating. Until you break the cycle every time the dog sees a sheep you will be back to the beginning again. To truely break the cycle you have to keep the dog away from the stimulus for long enough to instil recall. This is very difficult to do and could take months, if not years. I know very, very few people who have managed this.

OP did you contact Jim Greenwood? He's good and does clinics for about £30 a session.
 
CaveCanem said:
Please, please, no one read this and think they should run off and use electric without the guidance of someone who knows what they are doing and when and with the correct schooling in what circumstance to use it - I am glad it worked that way for you on your dog, Gwen, but you do that on the wrong dog and you will blow it's brains and make it worse.
I agree that zapping a dog willy nilly without even looking at the root cause of the behaviour is the reason why some people want them banned :(

Also agree that putting in a sheep with a pen as pups or smaller dogs might work, but again, it depends on the dog. The wrong dog will just go and go and go until they kill even the toughest tup.

That's why I suggested a trainer, they can gauge what sort of dog you have and what is most likely to work rather than blindly over a forum.

I live in an area full of sheep and I just keep my (very active, adult) dogs on the lead, I will not risk it, and it's not a huge deal.
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i am not sure what you are talking about, but the collars are SIX vaults, they are not wired up to the mains, it is like putting your tounge on a battery, i held it in my hand first, it is static not electric.

anyone tried the game with four handles and a buzzer? if you are last to press it at the right time you get a shock, it is no different, it is not painfull.
 
What about spray collars are they banned in Wales? Very effective for my current dog when he wanted to go off chasing allsorts. Years ago I had a sheep chaser and took her to a local friend who was a farmer and he ran 4 sheep over her. She was scared, yes, but it certainly did the trick with no ill effects and neither she nor the sheep were hurt. Good luck!
 
It is not only your dog's life that is in danger, but your bank balance! We don't have sheep but some come for winter grazing and a few years ago a couple of french sheepdogs (with a fancy name) went missing. The owners were putting up posters saying they were lost and came round to find out if we had seen them. We asked if they were OK with sheep and they said they had sheep in the field next to their garden and had never shown any interest in them.

Well OH and son found them in the act of savaging a field of sheep. Managed to catch them, without harming them, but they had done serious damage. The dog owner came round with a a big sum in cash to pay for the damage and vets bills which we passed on to the owner no doubt hoping that that was the end of it. But the insurance will only pay up to a certain amount. The bill for the dog owner got into a serious amount of money as the flock owner put the matter into the hands of an land agent. The cost of immediate death of sheep, then trauma to the others, lost lambs and then the bill for the agent came to two or three thousand. But I don't think that the dogs were put down. The flock owners wanted to compensate for loss not necessarily to have the dogs put down.

The strange thing was that the dogs hadn't taken any notice of "their" sheep int he field next door, but chased strange sheep.

(We had a similar case about 10 years ago and there the dog owner was happy to have the dog put down but didn't want to pay compesation. I thought that was odd. Anyhow, it was taken to court and the dog owner lost, so he had to pay AND had his dog destroyed).
 
Orangehorse - same has happened near us. Three dogs went missing (huski, huski x and a staff) and killed 5 sheep and were running through the rest. PM on the sheep showed that 2 were carrying 3 lambs and 3 were carrying 2 - 17 deaths due to one owner not controlling their dogs around livestock. The farmer is having the rest of his sheep ultrasounded to see just how many have lost their lambs :( The dog owner is in for a very large bill...
 
We have a dog that has a very strong hunting instinct- we never let her off if I can see livestock- i.e we always check the field before entering and dont even venture in sheep fields just in case- however, oddly enough today on our walk through agri fields Tassy spotted 3 munkjack deer in the field we were in( which I hadn't noticed) and she started off after them- I shouted her to come and she did! (bearing in mind shes a malamute) come straight back- this has taken 10 months of solid work for her to get that good at recall and even then I wouldn't walk her through a sheep field loose- not worth it at all- put the terrier on a lead- get a flexi that is designed for a far heavier dog than you have god as a just in case - even months of training cannot garantee 100% recall with livestock with breeds bred to hunt.
 
I'm afraid I have to agree with keeping on lead, winston is 100% with sheep and helps (in spaniel fashion) gather them and plays in fields containing sheep at OH's farm no trouble.
However when I take him for walks I will actively avoid fields containing sheep or keep him on the lead or at heel through fields of sheep. I don't think it is fair on the farmer to have dogs running around their stock frighteneing them never mind chasing them. Would it be worth maybe finding alternative routes or maybe do some agility or simular as an exersize or training outlet? Or try one of the training routes
Liz
 
Never managed to be sure that my dogs would listen to me with sheep. They normally get one test which is to be walked BY a field of sheep. Having had it drummed into me as a child that "just" chasing a sheep could cause them to drop dead means that every dog we have ever had was just never given the option. Sheep = leads everytime. BTW we did try my staffy bitch meeting a particularly obnoxious ram but rapidly decided it wasn't safe as staffs don't really back down. Its not a big deal for me personally.

Now cows - we can manage safely!
 
Someone has suggested electric collar which worked for them - you say you can't get it where you are (Wales) but could you get one online somewhere? It must be possible surely.

The thing we've found to be a useful tool is the "Pet Corrector" aerosol spray. Basically its a little reddish coloured aerosol cannister which you can pop in your pocket, filled with compressed air, which hisses when activated. When the dog exhibits unwanted behaviour, be it aggression towards other dogs, chasing cats etc etc., we've found that it just stops the thing dead and the dog learns that the behaviour is unacceptable. You should be able to get one at your local pet shop, or failing that your vets should be able to get one for you.

Well worth a try IME. PS know its obvious but when you've used the corrector to STOP the naughty behaviour, its important to reward the RIGHT behaviour so the dog learns whats what.
 
gwenllian said:
i am not sure what you are talking about, but the collars are SIX vaults, they are not wired up to the mains, it is like putting your tounge on a battery, i held it in my hand first, it is static not electric.

anyone tried the game with four handles and a buzzer? if you are last to press it at the right time you get a shock, it is no different, it is not painfull.
Click to expand...

Yep, I'm aware of how they work, I've had it on the low setting, and I've lit myself up like a Christmas tree with the £250 two-block jobbies, and I've put a pronger around my own neck to see what it felt like (behave :p)

I am not against such tools and I am not against compulsion on the right dog but using them as a punishment, bad dog - ZAP, on the wrong dog, can be very dangerous.
Just my opinion.
 
CaveCanem said:
Yep, I'm aware of how they work, I've had it on the low setting, and I've lit myself up like a Christmas tree with the £250 two-block jobbies, and I've put a pronger around my own neck to see what it felt like (behave :p)

I am not against such tools and I am not against compulsion on the right dog but using them as a punishment, bad dog - ZAP, on the wrong dog, can be very dangerous.
Just my opinion.
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I'm with you there.
I've had one of the cheap 50 pound jobbies round my neck and by god it hurt. Just look at youtube for all the video proof you need of that.
 
Thanks for all the replies everyone, sorry I havn't been able to get one here sooner.
Obviously I never risk letting my dog off the lead anywhere near any kind of livestock- I don't let him off the lead anywhere in the fear of him running until he finds a sheep. I have done lots of recall work with him as when we got him his recall was terrible. He will now come back very well when he's on a zippy lead/longline, however, I don't want to risk letting him off as it only takes a rabbit to encourage him to chase, then it could lead him to sheep. I was just asking to see if anyone had had similar problems and to find out if they had managed to solve them.
As for just rehoming him I am unwilling to do this as he is actually a lovely dog, who we have become very attatched to. We also got him from a rehoming centre where they didn't tell us of his problems (I don't know if they were aware of them) and so therefore history could repeat itself and he may not be so lucky to get owners that are as cautious as we are.

I am from Shropshire and so obviously being quite rural it's quite a problem! I have farming relatives and so have thought about doing some training with him in my uncle's field of sheep (obviously keeping him on a lead!), maybe to just try to desensitise him a bit as he gets very excited just seeing, hearing or smelling a sheep.

I would love to do some agility with him however don't know of anywhere around here that does it. Does anyone from Shropshire know of anywhere close? I think it would be good for him as he is very active, yet an incredibly quick learner. I think it would be good for him to have something to channel his energy into.

Thanks for all the replies and advice:)
xxx
 
Try the Agilitynet website for a club in your area. Also, MurphysMinder is in Shropshire and used to run her dogs in agility, and Goya/Bah Humbug and NeverSayNever also run theirs so might be a help.

I find an hour of training tires mine out much more than three hours of walking! Stick with him, I am sure you will see a change once he has a job to do :) and well done for getting this far!
 
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