Bird-obsessed Dog

[kayla1]

I’m looking for some training suggestions for a dog with a bird obsession. I have a small pap/terrier mix with a fancy for small creatures – but in particular, birds. She is totally and utterly obsessed – doesn’t matter whether the bird is in the yard, outside of the car window, on the ground, in the trees – she will go into prey drive immediately. She shakes, barks and squeals, lunges if on lead etc.

I have spent many months building up her drive for other things, tug toys and balls, and inside the house I can get a pretty high level of drive for these toys. At the park, she can focus on the toy/ball for a few minutes but not for any length of time because as soon as she spots a bird, that’s it. I don’t know how to increase the level of distraction gradually as obviously I have no control over the birds! I don’t let her off lead because as soon as she sees a bird, prey drive kicks in immediately and she takes off in less than a second – well, takes off but doesn’t get very far cos she hits the end of the lead. She is walked on a flat collar or harness, and a long lead sometimes for training.

I’ve tried a few things, the latest being as soon as she spots a bird, I say ‘no’ and then say ‘yes’ and reward when she looks at me. I’ve had some success with this, but most birds she just finds too exciting. Also this is hard because I have to say no before her drive kicks in, and with so many birds around it’s rather difficult as she usually spots the birds before I do! Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

[Cosmolo]

Kayla, i think the work you've done so far is great- just the right starting point. But think now that you're at the point you are with the dog, it might be time to introduce some compulsion and block the birds completely as an option (by using some kind of appropriate correction)

[Nekhbet]

you have to make birds unexciting. There are 2 methods

- find something more exciting

- couple the birds with something not too nice

what you can try and do it break her concentration. Grab a really loud whistle or air horn and when she starts the whole bird routine 'BEEP' just a quick one. When she turns to you pull out her favourite toy and play getting her focus on you. Same again as soon as she turns to look at a bird 'BEEP' repeat.

the unfortunate thing about prey work is it can open a can of worms. You are showing the dog how fun prey drive is, you are encouraging it etc and hence the dog will self reward. You HAVE to have some control over the dog though before you keep just pumping at drive. Building drive is not training, it is creating a tool. Saying that some dogs may not have the personality or nerves to cope with such high prey drive levels. Any dog that was behaving like yours I would be backing down how much you encourage the prey drive and how fast you bring it out.

[Aidan]

I’ve tried a few things, the latest being as soon as she spots a bird, I say ‘no’ and then say ‘yes’ and reward when she looks at me.

Does "no" mean anything? The only way to answer this would be to use it on it's own, then observe to see if there is actually a reduction in this behaviour or not.

Otherwise you might as well be saying "look at the birds" You're basically just putting it on cue.

[Kelpie-i]

I once saw a docco about a border collie who was absolutely obsessed with chasing birds. No matter what the owner's tried, there was no way this dog was going to stop.

From memory, the dog was eventually rehomed to a corn farmer where the dog was used to warn off the birds around the crops and there he lived out his days "working" for a living.

Not saying you have to rehome your dog to a corn farmer, but maybe you might want to "go with the flow" rather than fight your dog's urge to chase. As I see it, you have 2 options:, 1. as per Cosmolo's post, to introduce a correction OR 2. get your dog into a sport that involves chasing like lure coursing.

Dog's with a strong instinct to chase and/or a high prey drive can develop obsessive compulsive behaviours as means to the outlet. I realise you are using tug and balls etc, but may these are not fulfilling enough for your dog.

[kayla1]

I once saw a docco about a border collie who was absolutely obsessed with chasing birds. No matter what the owner's tried, there was no way this dog was going to stop.

From memory, the dog was eventually rehomed to a corn farmer where the dog was used to warn off the birds around the crops and there he lived out his days "working" for a living.

Not saying you have to rehome your dog to a corn farmer, but maybe you might want to "go with the flow" rather than fight your dog's urge to chase. As I see it, you have 2 options:, 1. as per Cosmolo's post, to introduce a correction OR 2. get your dog into a sport that involves chasing like lure coursing.

Dog's with a strong instinct to chase and/or a high prey drive can develop obsessive compulsive behaviours as means to the outlet. I realise you are using tug and balls etc, but may these are not fulfilling enough for your dog.

Balls are definitely higher value than tug toys because she loves the chase.

If the chasing is encouraged by lure coursing or something similar, would that increase her desire to chase other things like birds? Or would her desire to chase birds be reduced because she is getting drive satisfaction elsewhere. I’m not sure how often lure coursing is run but I think it’s only once a month or so (?), which wouldn’t be enough to satisfy her drive.

I do worry about her safety, more so than other dogs – she’s only 5kg and very fast, and if she was off lead after a bird she’d be gone in a second. So from a safety point of view, chasing birds is not something I want to encourage.

[kayla1]

I’ve tried a few things, the latest being as soon as she spots a bird, I say ‘no’ and then say ‘yes’ and reward when she looks at me.

Does "no" mean anything? The only way to answer this would be to use it on it's own, then observe to see if there is actually a reduction in this behaviour or not.

Otherwise you might as well be saying "look at the birds" You're basically just putting it on cue.

Yes, she knows that ‘no’ means stop whatever you are doing.

[Nicole...]

Lomani is my first dog so I have no idea if what I am saying is valid but it worked for us. Being a gundog she is totally bird obsessed and will spend her relaxed time roaming the yard, standing up against the fences to get a better look at birds etc. When we started doing agility birds were a problem as she had to be off lead and if she saw one she would go on a zoomie after it. We would give her a watch/look cue to get her eye contact on us the first second that she or us was aware that there was a bird around, before she was at the ballistic lunging stage. If she wouldn't look then straight in her crate. Same thing if we did fail in seeing it was going to happen and she managed to zoomie, we'd put her straight in her crate. When she came out we'd expect her eye contact to be on us, if not, back in her crate. It was hard work to start with but now she knows that chasing birds isn't on when we are in work mode.

We use the same practice to keep her nose off the ground with not quite the same success rate but we are getting there

[Aidan]

I’ve tried a few things, the latest being as soon as she spots a bird, I say ‘no’ and then say ‘yes’ and reward when she looks at me.

Does "no" mean anything? The only way to answer this would be to use it on it's own, then observe to see if there is actually a reduction in this behaviour or not.

Otherwise you might as well be saying "look at the birds" You're basically just putting it on cue.

Yes, she knows that ‘no’ means stop whatever you are doing.

OK, good, so she looks at you reasonably quickly when you use it provided you get in early enough?

Do you have friends with an aviary? I think it's always better to start off with something "too easy" and get a ton of repetitions there, build up the exact behaviour or behaviours that you want, then start increasing the difficulty once you have exactly what you want. Personally, if this were my dog I'd have her looking at me without thinking immediately when cued and doing that until release, and also heeling past the birds.

So I would start somewhere with no birds, then move to the outside of an aviary, then I'd go to the car-park by the beach and have someone try to eat a bag of chips at whatever distance necessary from me (No really, I'm serious)

If you use corrections then add them after this.