Just a few minutes ago I answered an email from a client.  I think her email, and my response, are worth posting in full, without editing.

Thanks Bryan.  We have very good friends in Kansas.  My friends all think
this no kill chickens  thing is a scam.  But I have my trust in it and hope
together we can proove them wrong.  This does make sense to me. Everyone
thinks I should just beat her and wait for her to kill a chicken then tie it
around her neck.  That is not my nature though and I just couldn’t do that!
So I will spend the next couple of days viewing the Videos, then I will
begin.

I’m hoping it won’t be as chaotic as the dogs first encounter with our pet
rabbit.  The kids dropped the rabbit outside while the dog was loose. The
dog chased, the rabbit ran, the kids screamed. I ran out (shall we say, not
quite dressed) the neighbors gaulked.  I’m running after the dog who was
running after the rabbit and yes….then the U.P.S. truck drove into the
driveway.  I yelled (from sort of partially hidden behind a bush “Leave the
package on the porch”!  Well, our rabbit now lives peacefully on our porch
and the dog goes in and out without bothering with it.  Well, I hope the
chicken/dog thing gets off to a better start.  I’ll keep you posted!
Hope this started your day out with a morning chuckle!
Best,
Sharon

That is a funny story, Sharon.  And there’s a signal in it that should help your friends overcome their scam fetish.

The dog no longer bothers the rabbit.  Ask yourself why.  The day the dog first chased the rabbit, it was because of elevated excitement.  Now it leaves the rabbit alone.  It no longer is visually excited when it sees the rabbit.  And that is the sole, entire issue that you must solve with the chickens.

There are many ways to do this.  Sometimes beating a dog works.  Dogs will sometimes train out of fear.  However, this type of training often backfires.  Take the dog that took me 45 to 50 hours to correct.  She had been beaten, and shocked with a collar, etc.  What helped me finally solve her issue was to recognize during the training that her aggression wasn’t out of being a chicken killer…it was out of a fear of being exposed to chickens, because chickens meant bad things would happen to her.  As soon as I saw that in her, I changed up the program by reversing a couple steps, the problem resolved very quickly, and changed my program for the better.  I’m building out the video on that now, and you’ll get to hear her story sometime soon.  These types of negative training can cause manias and fears to develop in a dog.  Why would anyone prefer that?

The bottom line, essentially, is that anything we can do to cause the dog to understand that it needs not get excited when it sees and hears a chicken will solve the problem.  We need to make the chicken boring, to be a creature it can coexist with.  Many people have succeeded in doing this in a great variety of ways; yet all dogs respond differently to various training techniques, and it can therefore take a skilled trainer to find and pick the right technique for a given dog.  What I’ve done is figured out a way to not train the dog, but let the dog train itself, simply by controlling is body long enough for its mind to get the message.

But even better, if we can, is to get the dog to not only ignore chickens, but to accept them into their pack, to become friends worthy of protecting.  And that’s what my technique will often lead to, if it is done very well.  But at the very least, it is a technique that even people without any dog training sense can do.  And further, it is a technique that is kind, loving, and gives the dog the opportunity to figure out chickens on its own, rather than being beat into submission.

I have one dog, quite old now, that I handled, ever so briefly, the way your friends suggested.  It is a lab mix.  It killed two chickens…this, before I fully developed my understanding of my current techniques.  So, in my anger and disappointment, I whipped the dog with the dead chicken, yelled, screamed, and demonstrated to the dog how unacceptable her behavior was.  She got the message; she’s never bothered a chicken again.  Before that incident, this dog was a lively, fun, vibrant animal.  Ever since that incident, she has been submissive, with a sad look in her eye.  I have never since lifted a hand to her, but I also have never been able to love her enough to bring her back to what she was.  I have lived this past ten years or so with a sadness every time I look at her.  I will probably cry harder when I lose her than with any other dog I’ve lost, as a final act of apology.

So, my hat is off to you in your preference to avoid the same bad advice you can find all over the internet.  I hope I’ve been able to give you a better way of accomplishing the goal:  make the chicken boring, and if possible, get the dog to adopt them.

Cheers.

–Bryan

P.S.:  Scams are anonymous.  My name and face are on this.  After doing the program, and corresponding with me if you have any disappointment or lack of success with which I might help, if you aren’t able to proudly tell your friends it wasn’t a scam after all, let me give you double your money back.  I have never had this technique fail for me.  It would be interesting to find the first failing…and I mean within the dog, not you or me.

I had an interesting conversation with Matthew Keenan a couple days ago.  Out of it came some new awareness for me.  I wanted to share it, and then I believe it will lead to some changes in our home page.

Here’s the background.  Matthew runs a farm animal operation involving hogs, lambs, calves, chickens, and probably more.  He said he wanted upwards of 700+ chickens, and that he’d like to pen his two dogs with them at night to keep predators out.  The breeds were a lab/German Shepherd mix, and a Rotweiller mix.  I told him I see no problem with that, if he goes through our four steps well.

Then it got interesting.  He has neighbors on each side of him, both have dogs, and both sets of dogs have come in and killed some of his animals.  I told him that we had prepared for “the neighbor issue,” in providing a printable .pdf at the bottom of our home page, which he can download, print, and give a copy to each of the neighbors, as a friendly way to get the message to them that there is a solution available, if they’ll just work with it.

But here’s the good part.  I started explaining that all the neighbors have to do is patiently go through the steps with their dogs.  Then I said, “The only way this can fail is if they lose patience and start to shortcut, or beat the dogs, or such.”  I told him this has to be done patiently and lovingly.

Please hear that again:  The only way our In-Sync process might fail is if it is not done thoroughly, lovingly and patiently.

Then it occurred to me.  We’re not training dogs to not kill chickens.  The dogs are training themselves! With the In-Sync process, all we are providing is a technique of controlling the dogs and the chickens in a manner and for a length of time that the dog figures it all out for herself, and comes to her own conclusions.

This realization makes it easier to understand why I’ve been saying that our methods don’t require that a person have great dog training skills.  All one needs for this to work is:  (1) the ability to hold/control/manipulate the dog in specific ways, and (2) a gentle, loving patience.

Any attempt to shortcut the time required, or to beat or discipline the dog in any fashion will backfire, and could possibly cause a failure to reach your goal.

How great is that?!

The initial release of our training videos to stop dogs killing chickens is just hours away.

It is so easy to browse the web, and it is so easy to look at all those cool web sites and think, “I could do something like that.  That shouldn’t be so hard.”

Truth is, when Jay turned to me and said, “Is it time for that video teaching how to stop dogs killing chickens yet,” and we agreed to do it, we both thought it should be a lightweight effort, and we could then quickly return to our day jobs.

It should certainly be easier than helping people one at a time who have called and asked for help with their dogs killing chickens.

So we tested the waters with an ad for volunteer dogs, and Bam!, Bam!, Bam!, in came the responses.  It was evident that people wanted help with this issue.  So off we sailed on our easy-do venture.

But then reality set in.  Let’s see, in two days that enthusiastic start will have been two months ago.  And since that start, this project has been my primary focus.  After gathering lots of raw silicon “footage,” I’ve spent the last two weeks just piecing it all together and building out the first two videos. Mind you, I’m a novice at this, this being my first significant video-creation effort.  But, still, who would have thought several hours can go into a six-minute segment?  …  Oh, yeah, those who’ve done it, of course.

And I haven’t even had to do the really hard stuff, myself.  Along the way I’ve had a lot of help from my assistant Jay, Laurie the web developer, Matt the artist, Lewis the programmer, and Richard, Dale and Annette the camera operators.  Who am I forgetting….  Ah, yes, the dogs.  I can’t slight the effort that all the dogs put in, my own enlisted canine hams included.

So I have to ask myself, “How in the world do all those cool web sites get built?  How do people do it?”  Getting one of these projects up and running is anything but easy.  But isn’t it great, the tools we have today for doing these things, and getting these messages out.

Ah, well, the fruits are now about to fall upon us.  Within a few hours, later today, we’re going to release the first edition.  There are several people eagerly awaiting and needing this as quickly as possible.  Not to mention, the project has already been included in a mailing dropped to over 300,000 people, thanks to our friend Cherice at Marketshare Group, and delivery starts any day now.  So I took “quickly as possible” quite literally, and am pushing out my own novice editing results.  I haven’t had time to get real help.  In time we can get Matt to help dress them dress them up a little with maybe bits of music, maybe cooler starts and endings.  But for those who need it now, who cares.  It works!

I still have additional videos to add.  “Ice’s Story” will be a while getting put together.  And I have vignettes planned for a few more valuable tidbits.  We’ll announce them as they come.

Please, if you like what you learn, enjoy what you see, help get the word around to stop dogs killing chickens.  The lives of countless chickens and killer dogs are at stake.

I’m off for a nap.

–Bryan

Late last Friday night two special guests arrived for the weekend.  That wonderful pair of pups that you see in our promo video, the German Shepherd and Lab/Boxer mix, came to our place for their boot-camp opportunity to learn to control that chicken-grabbin’ impulse.

On the day I met this pair and their owners, we worked with them for just a little bit, enough to get some pictures of them with a couple of chickens in a pen.  But, as puppies go, they take more patience and time, and so by the time I left they were far from cured.  And that was several weeks ago.  So when they arrived at our place last Friday, I decided to do something special with them for this project.

I elected to handle this pair as though I had been asked to step in and confront the issue immediately on dogs I’d “never seen” before.  I want to show that as a stranger I can step into a dog’s life, apply my method for a chicken-killing issue, and immediately correct the behavior.  I want to demonstrate that this method works, without regard to other traditional training.  I didn’t exercise them, I didn’t leash train them, I didn’t make sure they could sit, lie down, or stay.  I didn’t coddle them in any fashion.  What I did do is take them straight to the chickens to evaluate them, and, predictably, they still had a good amount of grab-shake-and-kill impulse in them.  So just plain and simple:  I applied my chicken-killer techniques, start to end, and have it all on video.

And then I made another decision.  I’ve decided to let you see this done on both dogs with almost every bit of footage that we shot.  I got started about 2:30 in the afternoon, and when I looked at the time when both dogs were at liberty in the yard with the chickens, it was 6:30.  Four hours.  Much of that time was spent in transitioning for the video, and a few mental and water breaks for me and the dogs.  So, in actual time spent in training, about three hours.  Two dogs.

When released, this overall project will be presented as a collection of various videos.  I don’t have it completely scripted and planned as yet, but in theory I’ll have various videos such as “Intro,” “Safety,” then “Step 1, “Step 2,” “3″ and “4.”  Those will show details, with several examples involving different dogs.

But these two pups are going to have their own feature film.  It might be a bit long for some, but others will appreciate having it available.  So far it looks like this one film alone is going to end up being a little over two hours long.  The only segments I’m cleaning out of it is where I would stumble on my talking, the breaks, and other awkward and messy moments.  Within this video you’ll find many imbedded hints and details that you might otherwise miss.

This one video will show you a real life experience of me interceding on chicken-grabbing behavior, and correcting it quickly, and easily, with no violence, tricks or gimmicks, in four easy, clear steps, that just about anyone can do.  This will convince you, if anything can, that most people can easily accomplish the same, with most dogs.

I also plan a special feature on Ice’s story, so you can compare the method being applied to two relatively easy, typical dogs, to working with an extreme dog.  You’ll see the steps are the same, and you’ll get insight into how you can successfully handle more extreme dogs.

–Bryan

Well, we just drove Ice home. I am so going to miss her.  What a cool dog!  What a pleasure it was to have her, to make her well, and, most importantly, to return her to her 14-year old boy who now has a dog he can really love.

Ice, the chocolate lab star of our show, was a tough one, for sure. The friendliest, nicest dog you could hope to be with, albeit generally out of control…until in the pen with a chicken. Then what a terror! A crazed, frenetic, chicken-killin’ machine, out to defy any and all efforts to control her and to get that chicken!  And that was AFTER I’d spent a week building a relationship with her.

But I was never daunted. Just delayed.

If you’ve seen our promo video, you’ve seen the dramatic change in her. Ice is now certified to be left alone with a chicken in the pen.  She was even safe and very nice to the baby turkeys she met when she got home. By all accounts from her owners, Ice would have been all over them in a frenzy three weeks ago, yet we walked her right up to them without restraint, picked one out and stuck it in front of her nose, complete with a wing flap.  She is now free to be at liberty in her own farmyard…something neither she nor her family had yet been able to enjoy.  She’s now a normal dog.

And here’s the sweet part.  It wasn’t really hard. Sure, she was a dog most people would have given up on. The kind that leads to those ridiculous rumours that once a dog has killed, it will always kill; that some breeds are worse than others; that you have to keep some dogs and chickens apart, there’s no other way. What silliness! What…well, poppycock!  I feel sad every time I see those nonsense posts on the internet forums.

But that’s the magic of this technique:  it’s *not* hard. It’s amazingly easy. Once you see our video, you’ll agree that most people will be able to do this at home, by themselves (with one helper for part of it).  And–within our front page caveat–can do it with any dog.  And this isn’t general dog training advice.  This is a technique, a method of intercession, that can be applied for fast, reliable resolution of a killing problem.  And the fact is, once you’ve done this, most any other behavior problems will go away right along with the chicken problem.

For anyone that might wonder:  Ice did not suffer through any shocking by a shock collar, never took any beating or other abuse, never had any dead chickens tied around her neck, or any other similar stupidity.  But there was, in fact, one additional tool I utilized, which I improvised for the first time, with an incredible, almost unbelievable success.  It worked better than any shock collar ever could have…and it never touched or was ever anywhere near the dog.  It worked so good, it will be highlighted and explained in the video.

But here’s an even better cliffhanger for you.  Wait until you see our video, and learn the truth of what was behind Ice’s bizarre chicken mauling.  It will most likely surprise you.  It even surprised me when I recognized it and adjusted accordingly.  But my system worked, and would have worked unaltered whether I’d recognized the truth of Ice or not.

I’ll work hard to get this video to you now as fast as I can, because I know some of you need this information right now.  People are already telling me, “I wish you had been here a few months ago when….”

–Bryan

Years after I posted comments on how to stop dogs from killing chickens, I continue to get calls from all around the country.  They all start about the same:  “Are you the guy who…?”  “Yup, that’s me,” I’ll say.  And off we go helping another dog owner with a chicken-killer issue.  Continue reading →