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Training border collies for bird control


Maja
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Has anyone had anything to do with this sort of training - BC for airports? I was asked about it and my answer was (after saying that I was guessing) that for this purpose the training would be simple, with recall being very important, but that the work itself would be very simple in comparison with average stock work. I said that it would be good do give the dog some training on stock so that the handler has control over the dog, but that the skills would be fairly simple, and that a about 12-15 months the dog should be able to take yup the job.

 

Did I say everything correctly?

 

Any thoughts and suggestions for that?

 

Maja

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Hello,

 

In upstate New York dogs are being used to keep canadian geese off of golf courses. I am lucky enough to live fairly close to a golfcourse that does not use chemicals and pesticides. However they are having geese issues even causing damage to the geese being hit by golfers.

 

My reason for my broder collie originally was to help out the golf course.

 

Recall would be easy if the dog can hear you.

 

A whistle comes in handy.

 

The problem is keeping the geese away for good.

 

On my property my border collie has successfully moved the enormous wild turkey population away.

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Generally when the dog is moving birds away, it's driving. You don't so much need the gathering istinct of the typical border collie. The dog needs to be under good control as (at least here in the US geese and other migratory waterfowl--actually migratory birds in general--are federally protected) you can't have them injuring the birds (bad public relations if nothing else). It takes a dog who doesn't get disheartened about always "losing" its stock, since the goal is to lose them. Last, if you're doing goose or other waterfowl control the dog needs to be able to swim and take direction while swimming.

 

Most of the people I know in the bird control business do put basic stock training on the dog first, and in fact teh goose control "industry" is one good outlet for dogs who are trained but aren't up to trialing potential for whatever reason.

 

J.

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Thank you for your responses. It all sounds very doable. I am planning to have geese this year.

 

I think a dog could learn to like "blowing the flock".

 

The thing I was thinking about was the airplane noise - it would have to be dogs that are not too sensitive.

 

Maja

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You know, I wonder if the airplane noise limits the useful life of the dog? You can't put hearing protection on them if you need you to hear you, so I imagine that work-related deafness might be an issue, but then again maybe the long-term hearing issues take longer to affect the hearing than the life of a dog....

 

J.

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