You’re trying to teach your dog to be calm around the chickens, so you want to control the interactions, keep it so your dog can only be calm, and then reward your dog.

Start by giving your dog a good bit of exercise and attention. Then put him on a leash and bring him within sight of the chickens–about to the point where you expect him to strain at the leash, quiver, go on alert, show interest . . . whatever. Then make your dog lie down. Stay nearby, have your dog stay down for a minute or two, then give them some praise and walk them away. Repeat this daily (ad nauseum?) increasing the length of time the dog stays down, decreasing the distance to the chickens. The idea is that you teach the dog to stay calm (lying down is what dogs do when they’re calm) when they’re around the chickens.

Now, again, I know this won’t work for all dogs. We did this with our dog, who was not a puppy and is very trainable. It worked like a charm with her–after a week, she could be off-leash around the chickens and didn’t ever chase them again. But I know some dogs are still puppies, have more of a prey drive, etc. But I really encourage anyone with dogs and chicks to treat this as something you can train your dog to deal with and not something you have to put up with.

I really enjoy your blog–thanks for writing!