How to train GSD not to eat our own chickens and lambs?!?

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bwibwigouza

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Carmie is currently 2 yrs old going to be 3 at the end of the year. She was raised on raw diet when she was with the breeder but because of her "hunting" tendencies we've taken her off raw diet. She currently lives on a farm with different livestocks that's all fenced in separate areas.

When she was about 1 yr old, she did attempt to "hunt" our ducks. At that time we were able to intervene since she was not allowed to run free in the yard by herself. Now, her recall is much better we let her run free around our yard which is fenced all around the property line in addition to the separate livestock fences. A few months after she's set to run free, we've noticed she's back to her "hunting" behaviour.

Most of the time she hunts mouse and birds which is good for the farm. However, recently she has ate one of our newborn lamb that got out of the area we fenced up just for the sheep. She also ate a rooster that jumped out of the chicken run.

Before these 2 incidents she had been caught 4-5 times sneaking inside the sheep fence cornering the herd. Every time that she's caught she's been removed from the area and taken to her kennel to chill. After the 2nd time she was caught she knew she did something wrong and headed to the kennel herself. However this didn't stop her from trying again few weeks later. Is there a way to teach her not to "eat" our own livestock?
 
Find a trainer that knows GSD's! Not going to be a popular answer on here but you need a good E-collar and a trainer to show you how to properly use it.

Check out the GSD forum they will be able to help and someone will probably even know where to find a trainer in your area. http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/
 
I am not familiar with training methods for GSD. We have goats and chickens and our shelties are great with them.
 
JessicaR said:
Find a trainer that knows GSD's! Not going to be a popular answer on here but you need a good E-collar and a trainer to show you how to properly use it.

Check out the GSD forum they will be able to help and someone will probably even know where to find a trainer in your area. http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/
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Thank you for the link. I'll try asking on that forum. My sheltie doesn't have this problem either.
As for the connection to raw diet, we didn't think it was a problem when we got her from the breeder. But she had refused eat everything except raw meat. Initially we were just adding fruit and veggies to her raw meat. She would then pick all the fruit and veggies out just eat the meat. When she was about 1 yr old, one of our sheep died and we placed the carcass outside the fenced area for easy clean up. When we went back to pick up the carcass, she gutted it. (This was in winter that's why we didn't haul it away immediately.) After this incident she began showing great interest in our ducks. They were the only livestock on the farm that's not fenced because they were raised for slug control.
 
"After the 2nd time she was caught she knew she did something wrong and headed to the kennel herself. However this didn't stop her from trying again few weeks later"

Yes, Carmie is aware that something is wrong - it can be read from your body language, but she has absolutely no idea why she is being closed in. Therefore it happens again.

Sorry my English is so bad, so unfortunately I can not be of much help.

This is definitely not a normal behavior for German Shepherd dogs - they are amazing herding dogs.

Have Carmie been with you all the time when you have been at home and when you have been with your animals ??
So she has learned that it is your pack that she together with you must take care of !!

I myself have had GSD with a lot chickens which went freely and my two dogs would never dream of doing them anything
 
JessicaR said:
Find a trainer that knows GSD's! Not going to be a popular answer on here but you need a good E-collar and a trainer to show you how to properly use it.

Check out the GSD forum they will be able to help and someone will probably even know where to find a trainer in your area. http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/
Click to expand...
I disagree. An e-collar is no substitute for proper training - and if your dog is properly trained, there is no need for an e-collar. I DO think that you need a professional consult at this time but I strongly encourage you to research positive only trainers. The Victoria Stilwell site lists a lot of options https://positively.com/dog-training/find-a-trainer/find-a-vspdt-trainer/
 
I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Training a high prey drive GSD is not like training a sheltie, especially if the OP has a working line dog. When you have something as serious as killing livestock lives are on the line, not only for the livestock but for the dog! If this dog was to get loose and go after another persons livestock that dog is very likely to be shot, no questions asked and the farmer would be legally in his right to do so. So while PO is great for your family pet with no issues I would not recommend it for a life or death issue such as this.

Oh I would also recommend a basket muzzle for this dog when he is around livestock.
 
JessicaR said:
I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Training a high prey drive GSD is not like training a sheltie, especially if the OP has a working line dog. When you have something as serious as killing livestock lives are on the line, not only for the livestock but for the dog! If this dog was to get loose and go after another persons livestock that dog is very likely to be shot, no questions asked and the farmer would be legally in his right to do so. So while PO is great for your family pet with no issues I would not recommend it for a life or death issue such as this.

Oh I would also recommend a basket muzzle for this dog when he is around livestock.
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I would say that if the dog can't be trusted not to kill livestock he shouldn't be out there working with it. Clearly this is not an appropriate activity for this particular dog.
 
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