If I didn't laugh - I would have cried! Talk about ironic!

Ravenwood

Ravenwood

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The other evening, Rosie was in the sitting room and I was here in the dining room on the PC.

When I went in to put them to bed I discovered that Rosie had chewed up one of my books that I had foolishly left on the arm of the settee :( She hadn't just nibbled at it but completely ripped it all up into little tiny pieces :(

And what was the book? Just about one of my favourites...................






"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time"

Gah!!!! :mad:

She killed three of my chickens at the weekend too (you may have missed that as I tacked it onto the end of my shooting thread) :(

Anyone want a border collie pup? Free to a good home - actually any home!
 
PMSL. I devour books myself, but not in that way :p :D

Sorry to hear about the chooks. My old girl killed three of my rabbits but you can't be cross at them, it's instinct (and me being a numpty and not putting her away properly!) and don't forget how delicate chickens can be, the place I stayed in Spain, the dogs killed chickens while muzzled, just kinda head-butted them to death :o

Cats on the other hand? Oh cats can get chased and caught and suffer puncture wounds and STILL parade up and down in front of the kennels - nine lives, indeed!!!
 
Bizarrely she killed all three of the Light Sussex but didn't touch the Marans :confused: :mad:

She had actually escaped from the pen when I took Flyn shooting with me but left Toby with her.

This weekend I have mostly been digging a 46ft long trench and sunk in some chain link fencing!!

Every single muscle in my body aches now! Even my fingers!! We have very stoney ground!

Good God - how we suffer as dog owners!! :rolleyes:
 
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I have a dog in with severe seperation issues and he ate a pair of shoes I have worn once:mad:

We used to have a GSD that ran with the horses and was out all night loose, my mams tw8t of an X husband returned to find his chickens in the form of 16 pairs of legs and lots of feathers, we told him it was a fox and locked the dog up beforehe got there:rolleyes::D

My mams GSD's also killed 2 ferrets that wondered into their run, they happened to be my now OH's who lived over the road at the time, many moons ago:eek::D

OH also had chickens at home last year and the pointer ate them all:D
 
Haha, sorry shouldn't laugh but yes how ironic!! That book is my favourite of all time! I'm reading his second book at the mo and really enjoying it :D
 
Strangely though she has always lived very happily alongside the chickens - the old ones used to just roam free in the garden and I have pictures of them all sitting down together - she never showed any signs of attacking them :(

I guess she got into their run and they flapped around (son had clipped their wings last week so they didn't even have the chance of flying out of her way) and it became a game. It was awful coming home to that carnage - really upsetting :( I had bought them as day old chicks and put them under my broody hen.

Cayla - Rosie has also chewed shoes, cables, chargers, and a whole host of other things! Thats teething pups for you I guess - a chew or a bone obviously doesn't have quite the same appeal as an electric cable!! :eek:

Sarahsum - what is the second book? I would love to read that. :)
 
That is ironic...little madam! I was reminiscing with a friend the other day about when my parson bitch was a pup...she used to seek out my fags and destroy them into a million pieces! Someone brought me back a 200 carton from holiday once...there was about 3 fags that were smokable out of the whole lot!
Tilly has killed many of my ferrets :( Very upsetting, we had an escape the week after Matt left, she broke pumpkins back and I had to take him to the vets to be pts :( Hard not to hold it against them, its just instinct kicking in though. She used to wait by the wire and literally pull them straight through the cage, wire and all, we got her over this, she hadnt killed a ferret for 3 yrs when poor pumpkin made the mistake of escaping and trying to climb up her leg :( Milo was barking and I went outside just in time to see her grab him by the front door. In fairness to her as upset as I was about it, she dropped him as soon as I shouted and I think the action of her doing that was what broke his back. If he hadnt climbed up her leg I think she would have left him so she has improved! It is hard not to hold it against them sometimes though.
 
Mum's GSD killed several chickens - took some working out how though as Lottie was shut in "her" stable at the time and she's fine with them on the yard... the stupid birds were going in there to roost - talk about having a meal delivered in :eek: :D
Now we just make sure they're not that "free range" and are shut away in a completely seperate pen.
 
I'm not being a thread killer or judgemental or anything but if any of our dogs killed a chicken or a ferret or any other animal of ours I would be absolutely livid. They can kill all the rabbits and squirrels they catch but they do know the difference between a wild animal and one of ours. They're brought up with the hens and ferrets right from young pups, even feeding with them and know right from wrong right from the start, a stern rating (word) is all that's ever been needed if they so much as looked at them so they soon learn to ignore them altogether. I find it very hard to know how on earth some get away with killing your pets/hens time and again, it's so anti social of them. I remember one time, gormless here shut the dogs up for the night in the dark only to be greeted the next morning with a brown hen scratching around in their pen and the dogs on their beds looking absolutely mortified and scared to move until I had shooed her out; OH said later he wondered where she had disappeared to the night before but hadn't said anything; she must have gone in the pen and the door shut behind her so she roosted in there for the night. Good dogs though it's nothing I wouldn't have expected from them anyway as it was in their house after all.

PS: Yes, the latest pups did claim a book or two and still will given the chance, I just try to remember not to leave them about although I admit, I'm at fault if I leave temptation under their noses! It's even worse when they've only ate the last few pages so you don't know the ending.
 
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Sorry, I don't think dogs do know 'right' from 'wrong' in the conventional human sense.
Many dogs are hardwired to chase and catch (and in some cases eat) small fast-moving things, because once, back long ago :p, that's how dogs got their food and survived.
It's the same drive that makes them want to fetch a ball, herd sheep, it's all modified from the same basic behaviour.

They just know if they execute a certain behaviour in a certain place, they risk being reprimanded. If they act outside those boundaries, they don't. I wouldn't place that amount of intelligence in any of my dogs, knowing what is good prey and bad prey, it has to be taught as you say, with a stern word, but some dogs need a lot more training in this area - and some will never have it truly 'out' of them.

My dog will not chase a cat when I am beside him. If I am not there, he will, because I am not there, asking him not to.

My old bitch, who killed my rabbits, was not at fault, I was, I didn't close the bolt on her kennel door properly. I am not cross with a dog for acting on instinct. She did not eat them. Once she had caught them, they had stopped moving, they were no longer appealing to her. In fact they had hardly a mark on them. She just wanted to stop them moving and they died in the process because rabbits can drop dead with fright, she was a big dog and she did too much damage.

FI the chickens were attractive to Rosie because they were moving and probably the ones of a certain colour stood out to her more, she caught them, IE, put them in her mouth. In doing so, she killed them because she has teeth and chicken are delicate. It wasn't malicious!
 
In our case... at the time Lottie had "her" stable in the yard where she had her dinner and where she slept - is it her fault that the chickens (she had 2) decided her bed was a place to go and lay an egg? We have now made it so that it can't happen again - first one was a mystery as it seemed to have vanished - we actually thought the fox had visited and had it rather than Lottie, it was only when we found the feet/feathers of the 2nd one buried in her bed that we realised it was her. We also know that the chickens went to her rather than she went out and caught them because at the time her door was shut so she couldn't get out but the chickens could get in.... chickens are DUMB.
 
my dog ripped out and shredded the last 6 pages of a thriller i was reading :( my fault for leaving it within his reach, tho i swear he's a Terminator in disguse with telecopic paws for swiping stuff off surfaces i think are too tall for him to reach :p
had to go the library, find the book and sat there to read the last bit lol
 
MFH - I completely agree. All my dogs have grown up with the chickens - they all free range on the lawn together. None of them have ever shown the slightest interest in them whatsoever. I can show you pictures of them all sitting down together. The same with our cat - they live harmoniously.

Rosie had escaped from the pen when I was out for the day shooting - she could have been out for hours and hours for all I know and I guess she jumped in with the hens and thats how it started.

I can tell you that Toby was there at the time, far too well mannered to even walk out of the pen even if the door was wide open and was literally terrified when we got home - he knew exactly what she had done wrong.

So it wasn't for lack of training it was the lack of security - which has now been resolved!
 
Ravenwood said:
Strangely though she has always lived very happily alongside the chickens - the old ones used to just roam free in the garden and I have pictures of them all sitting down together - she never showed any signs of attacking them :(

I guess she got into their run and they flapped around (son had clipped their wings last week so they didn't even have the chance of flying out of her way) and it became a game. It was awful coming home to that carnage - really upsetting :( I had bought them as day old chicks and put them under my broody hen.
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My uncle has 2 Belgian Shepherds, a cat and a long haired GSD - also 6 pheasants, 20 hens and 16 ducks! Neither of the dogs or cat bothered with the birds - until a few weeks ago when the BS just decided to attack 3 of the hens...
All we can think is that something upset the chooks, they created a drama, unsettled the dog and the dog just snapped :(
it could have been anything but is quite common for them to live in harmony and suddenly snap for any unknown reason xx shame about the hens though!!
 
Maesfen said:
I'm not being a thread killer or judgemental or anything but if any of our dogs killed a chicken or a ferret or any other animal of ours I would be absolutely livid. They can kill all the rabbits and squirrels they catch but they do know the difference between a wild animal and one of ours.
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You can try telling a dog "that is a pet" and "that is a wild rabbit (or whatever)" but its like saying "your instincts today are right/wrong" - not going to happen with most dogs...:o they may live harmoniously 99% of the time but if those chickens create a drama at the wrong moment the dog will snap straight back to its wild instincts!
Rabbits and chickens (plus most other birds) are very delicate - I think smaller animals can self induce heart attacks in order to die (such as sparrows, mice etc) so the dog doesn't even have to cause too much damage in order to actually kill the animal.
Just one of those instinctive things that we have trained them out of - but we can't be there every time something kicks off :(
K x
 
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