An acquaintance of mine is all weepy on Facebook because he and his dog were in the woods and the dog chased, killed, and partially ate a squirrel. Apparently he took the half-eaten corpse from the dog for burial, rebuked the dog for what it had done, and is now seeking ways to train the dog out of such behavior.
I have not chimed in on this thread, partly because I have no advice to give but mostly because I think “Barry” is being an idiot. With the exception of the Annoying Yappy Dog my cousin and I rescued last year, I’ve never cared for any canine; nonetheless, I think I understand enough about dogs to see that Barry’s was acting perfectly natural, and the imputing human ethics upon one as he is attempting is silly.
But I could easily be wrong. As I said, I am not a dog person, nor do I care to be. So, dog owners and lovers: what do you think?
Hunting dog owners will often train thier dogs not to chase game they aren’t hunting. I suppose this might be similar. Most every dog I have ever had will chase and kill a squirrel if he can catch it. Some dogs you can train and some are much harder. I think he is being silly. However he should be in control of his dog at all times at least with basic obedience training, he should be able to call him off the chase. I haven’t had much luck with my chuhuahua though, once he starts he wont stop.
If my dog caught and ate a squirrel, my only concern would be that his al fresco dinner would end up on the rug later in the evening.
My terrier kept the house mouse-free and never met a mole she couldn’t catch and kill. She was praised for every little corpse.
It’s what some dogs (and cats) do.
I think if consuming recently deceased critters disturbs one, then the solution is to leash the dog, muzzle it, or teach it to “drop it” on command, no matter what “it” is.
Your friend I think is overreacting. Still, I’m thinking of a tiny little shovel and a supply of tiny little crosses as a gift.
I would not chastise the dog for chasing and killing a squirrel, I would severely chastise myself for not having taught the dog an effective “off switch”, which may or may not be a recall.
My Lab is obedience trained and lives in a house full of cats that she is actually submissive to. But she will chase small running things outside - cats, squirrels, even birds and while some people may encourage that I do not, I don’t want my dog killing anything either. Therefore, “LUNA NO!! Down!!” will stop her in her tracks, and from there I can either call her back to me, or go up to her and leash her if necessary.
On rare occasions the effectiveness starts to wear off, and we go back to working on a long leash and/or in a contained environment where I can be a bit more in control of the parameters.
As an aside, this sort of remote off switch can be a lifesaver too if they’re headed for a dangerous situation like a busy road or barely iced over pond or something.
“Barry” is an idiot and needs to pull his head out of his ass. dogs aren’t people. they’re carnivores. if they want to chase, kill, and eat a smaller animal, they will. If he’s not comfortable with that, then he has no business owning a dog or a cat.
Depends on his situation and his training goals. I’d be impressed if my dog managed to catch a squirrel. I’d prefer my yard squirrel free and would encourage the activity. As it is my dog is a completely inept hunter. If he actually catches up with something he stops to sniff it and the critter makes an escape. He whines at me when critters hide in trees from him.
The only thing he can catch is porcupines.
Update: I had the facts somewhat wrong. The woods in question were in fact the stand of trees behind Barry’s house, and he has been setting out corn and such to feed squirrels. And presumably raccoons. The dog killed the squirrel on Barry’s property, in other words.
Whether this changes anyone’s appraisal of the situation, I don’t know.
Barry is an idiot. As others have stated, his dog is exhibiting fairly normal behavior. He needs to focus on teaching recall (“come”) or stop walking him off leash. Note that calling a dog back from chasing a squirrel may be a non-trivial thing to teach at this point.
We had a English Springer that killed a ground hog and a couple of squirrels when I was a kid. I witnessed the ground hog killing which was pretty gruesome and felt bad for it but it was an English Springer after all.
As others said, I would rebuke the dog because I’d be training it to listen to commands and I don’t want it running off to bite small things be they squirrels, the neighbor’s cat, another dog or a running child. For that matter, I’d want the dog to stop on command before it ran across a busy road to bite a squirrel. I wouldn’t be rebuking it because I give a crap about the squirrel but because the dog generally misbehaved in a way that could have worse consequences for the both of us.
I think that Barry is wrong in that he shouldn’t expect the dog to not act like a predator when he hasn’t properly trained it to obey commands over its predatory instinct.
why would it? dogs have no notion of “property.” this whole line of questioning is dumb; it’s trying to ascribe human emotion and reasoning to an animal which is not capable of either. dogs are carnivores, they exist to kill and eat smaller animals. full stop.
