My wife and I adopted a rescue dog about a month ago. he's a chow lab mix and weighs in at 52 pounds. the dog is about 18 months old, and was found along side of the road in rural virginia.
He appears to have had no domestic training, but he is learning the basics and is enrolled in a dog obediance class once a week. The issue is that we live on a small farm, and if he sees a deer, he goes absolutly nuts and unmanagable. It is not that he acts bad, it is more like he turns in to a completly different animal, barking, pulling and totally focused on getting to the deer. We have him to the point where he listens to basic commands, is sociable with other dogs he meets, etc, but all of this goes out the window if he spots a deer.
It's pretty apparent that someone had raised him to be a deer hunting dog. We have horses on the farm and he doesn't mind them, just the deer. Our problem is that unlike the horses, i don't keep a couple of deer in the front pasture, so i can't exactly work with him to be comfortable around them. How do i work through this issue with him? Now we do see deer once a week or so around here, but trying to plan training around the exact time you may see one is unrealistic. My real fear is that he is going to break away chasing one and we'll never see him again. His determination to chase them is so strong that he broke a halti training collar last week when he saw one. any suggestions?
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how do i "untrain" a hunting dog.
Replies (2)
This is a hard one. Dogs used to hunting have instincts that are difficult to overide. It sounds like you're doing good things though. I hope someone with more experience in this area can offer suggestions.
Could you shake a can of pennies to get your dog's attention and then re-focus with treats? It's worth a try, but I suspect hunting instincts are stronger.
My dog used to take off so quickly after animals that I thought she was going to tear my arm off more than once, but she's less intense now with age--or she gives up more easily.
Prey drives can be hard to control. You have a smart dog, I'd teach a "leave it" command. You don't start with your target being a deer in this instance, but instead work up slowly starting with low value items and reward lavishly for looking away from the item. With some practice and training, the command can transfer to such high value things as the deer.
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Chelle and the rest of the crew including, but not limited to Kita and Taiko (the shiba inu wrestle maniacs), Adi (reserved and dignified tabby cat), and all 28 reptiles
