Backyard Chickens and Your Dog

Our nine pound Chihuahua, Dante, loves our backyard chickens. In fact, he loves them so much, he wants to eat them! Well, I guess dogs will be dogs...

I thought I'd share how the chickens have been fitting into Dante's life, as well as our own. I think I was secretly hoping that Dante and the chicks would miraculously be BFFs, but like most things in life, their relationship is taking more time and patience, ugh, there's that "p" word again. So if you have a dog and you're thinking about getting some backyard chickens, here's some things that I've learned.

The chicken area of the yard is still under construction, I'm hoping the girls will just eat all the weeds for me!

1. Consider where your chickens will live in relation to your dog. We're in the process of fencing in a portion of the yard so that the chickens can free range in safety with their coop. Currently there's no fence, just a thin chicken wire barrier. The holes are perfectly sized for a little Chihuahua mouth.

2. Introductions. Don't bring your chicks home at midnight and put them in the basement until the coop is built. That's unfortunately how Dante first met them, tiny feathered intruders in his home! He picked up on their presence in seconds, tore down the stairs and starting barking and nipping at feathers. When we finally built the coop we went about it a much better way. We made sure Dante had a long walk and was good and tired. Since he was still leashed we approached the chickens very slowly and gradually. It's also a good idea to have a favorite toy with you to distract them every so often. They have to learn that the chickens aren't a threat, and don't need to be the focus of attention when he's in the yard. After awhile we took him off the leash and played fetch. He played for a bit, then remembered about the chickens and ran back to start the process all over again.

3. Patience! Take the dog out on the leash frequently to see and sniff them until they seem calm around the coop. If your chickens will always be in a coop, then you're good to go. Eventually the dog will just get used to them and won't even feel the need to watch them. But since we'd like our chickens to free range, we have to go a little further with training.

4. Meeting face to face. The other night we not only let the chickens free range without the fence up, but we brought Dante out too. He whined a lot, but soon tired himself out and laid down. The funny part is that the chickens could care less about him. I thought they would be skittish, but maybe they're just not that smart.

Lemme at 'em!

The chickens don't really stray too far from the coop anyway.

At this point Dante has given up on a chicken dinner.