my staffie is chasing and killing birds well two this week help please

almond

hi
i am getting myself in a state i have bob staffie 11 months
and a few months ago found him eating a bird on sofa well that was the start, monday sat in garden with dead bird and this morning ended up in pond , i know he had one, this might seem a bit daft but i have x rays eyes 6th sense were birds are concerned.
i have had this fear of birds for 40 years and its my worst nightmare coming true.
I love him to bits but can't cope with the thought of having a dog killing birds , i know this is sounding daft but can anybody suggest how i can train him to stop please , i need to do something but don't know what?

Fire_Fox

Where is your dog getting the birds from, is he running off and ignoring your recall? Have you considered addressing your phobia with help from your doctor?

almond

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Where is your dog getting the birds from, is he running off and ignoring your recall? Have you considered addressing your phobia with help from your doctor?

its when he is in the garden playing he will run off chasing them and then i find he is sat eating one when i go out to see where he is

regarding phobia think i am to old for that and have lived with it to long and its not going to stop bob but would be lovely not to have
to live in fear of birds, ok that sounds daft

Youdontseeme

Darn he must be good! We had a lab that would spend every waking hour running up and down the garden trying to catch birds, but he only managed it 2 or 3 times and was 17 when he died!!

I too have a phobia about birds and would be glad they are dead when he's bringing them in, can you imagine if they were still all flapping around :shocked: (NOTE: I would NOT be glad he was killing them, just glad that he isn't bringing live ones in, before you all decide I am a monster)

How to stop him though.......... might a bell on a collar work? I realise they dont work too well with cats, but they are sneaky deathly quiet and can pounce rather quickly. I am guessing a big slobbery staffie isn't quite as stealth like in his approach and a bell may help.

Good luck
YDSM

Fire_Fox

Either supervise your dog in the garden or bird proof it - neither are very practical. You cannot train a dog to do anything reliably when you are not there, otherwise everyone would allow their dogs to free feed and not bother with garden gates. It's his instinct to chase birds, I would have thought you would have to do aversion training using a bird, which means you have to be near one.

What do you have to lose by approaching your doctor? You are never too old to learn something new, people in their seventies successfully study for a degree having left education sixty years earlier. Even if you don't completely rid yourself of the phobia you might be able to reduce the reaction substantially.

almond

the collar is a great idea but we have had to take the collars of the dogs (i have lovely lucy staffie cross) long story but bob loves to walk round hangs from lucys collar.
was wondering if i got a elastic type could that work? i only thought bells were to let you know a cat was coming!

DogsBody

Are they this years fledgelings or adult birds? If youngsters, the ones that survive soon learn to be quicker off the mark (my dogs can't catch adult birds but have taken 2 fledgeling blackbirds over the last few years), so it should only be a problem for a couple of months of the year. This time of year I have to wander loudly round the garden before I let the dogs off so anything young and stupid has plenty of warning to get out of the way!

almond

DogsBody wrote: »

Are they this years fledgelings or adult birds? If youngsters, the ones that survive soon learn to be quicker off the mark (my dogs can't catch adult birds but have taken 2 fledgeling blackbirds over the last few years), so it should only be a problem for a couple of months of the year. This time of year I have to wander loudly round the garden before I let the dogs off so anything young and stupid has plenty of warning to get out of the way!

thanks seems i am over reacting but thats me , i can cope with anything but birds , the dogs love the garden and spent most of the day outside i just leave the back door open and let them come in as and when, i have never had this from lucy but then our bob is the dog from hell,
i am going to get a bell for him and will start to go out for a quick run around before i let them out and see if that makes any difference

DogsBody

My sister has a bird phobia too, any flapping sends her running off screaming, so I do know where you are coming from

Sublime_2

I'm lucky. My little rescue staffy is forever chasing birds, but his stumpy little legs have never let him catch one yet.

rising_from_the_ashes

almond wrote: »

the collar is a great idea but we have had to take the collars of the dogs (i have lovely lucy staffie cross) long story but bob loves to walk round hangs from lucys collar.
was wondering if i got a elastic type could that work? i only thought bells were to let you know a cat was coming!

You wouldn't need to put a collar on Lucy as it's Bob that's chasing the birds = nothing for him to hang off!

You will get there with patience and training - we live in a rural area and have pheasants etc wandering around. All our labs have tried to catch them (some successfully) when little but we've managed to "train it out" of all of them eventually. My old boy's not too great - but he was 5 when I got him so much harder to sort bad habits by that age.

I love birds when they're away from me/in the garden etc but get in a real panic when they flap near me so know what you mean.

Good luck