Can you put a bell on her collar?

Dogs are more obvious hunters...cats are more ruthless hunters. Our 4 labs each have specialized hunting tatics. Two of girls are more mole/groundhog prone killers, one is an excellent bird dog (even though I don't hunt with her) and the other is more lathargic and grazes on grass (looks like a angus calf) but oddly the grazer is more territorial to other wildlife yet the runt of the bunch. I keep our girls penned up more in the spring as I don't want to disturb the nesting and young animals. Best thing you can do is keep some cover nearby for the animals to retreat to. A bell is good idea too. Limit predator exposure during the nursing season. Beyond that predation is inevitable and healthy within checks and balances.

Thanks Elly and Waterdaddy,
I could try a bell......although I'd probably want to put it on only for going outside, as she'd drive us nuts inside with it! :) There's lots of cover in the back yard, but she's an incredible "finder of anything that's alive"! When she got the song sparrow, I just couldn't believe my eyes, how quick she was. I think I need to be more vigilant, about visually checking out most of the yard before she goes out, and watching her as she first leaves. She gets crazy when she sees something, so I usually get ready to sprint when I see her acting like that! I'm so glad the squirrel got away. She grabed it, and it fell down, while climbing the fence, but quickly got back up the fence and got away. YAY!!
Maybe instead of a bell on her collar, I need to put some weights on her ankles! ;)

LOL at the weights idea! I would definitely try to bell her collar--it works on some cats. Maybe a special Outside Collar with bell? One thing too--if she is young, she may grow out of this stage or slow down. I'm sure you're giving her plenty of exercise, but perhaps she needs other things to distract her? Maybe other toys? I don't know...also perhaps you can train her to leave the critters be by going out with her on a leash and giving her a firm "NO" when she goes after a bird or squirrel?
Not flaming, just some other thoughts. I don't have a dog now, but used to have a husky/lab mix who was hard on moles -- he was very trainable though and learned to let them be for the most part. And he grew out of it eventually! :) Good luck with the "warrior Princess". She's a lucky pup to be taken in by you!

We find that our dog is frankly too stupid and slow-moving to get most wildlife, and we're very happy about that. The only problem is that occasionally a rabbit makes a nest within reach of the dog's chain, and then she kills the babies for fun. Horrible. Squirrels, chipmunks, adult rabbits, etc. are all much faster than she is, so there's no problem. She grabbed a woodchuck once at night, but it played dead and the dog didn't know what to do with it, so it got away. We never let her in the miniwoodland where the birds hang out, and of course we have no feeders.

Can you take the dog out on a leash until she's older and more amenable to voice control? We recently raised a Seeing Eye puppy who wanted to chase birds, but we actually did teach her not to by the time she was 18 months old.

Could you get her all revved up with a squeak toy before you open the door? Then when you open the door, throw the squeak toy so she'll go after it instead of something else. The bell collar and the squeaking toy may make enough noise to give warning of her release in the yard.

Thanks everyone,
Suzi has been a real challenge to train, but she's doing better. It's funny, she's just like a person with ADHD........when she sees an animal, she has absolutely no hearing whatsoever. I think it's a natural thing for animals to become so focused........but it makes it impossible to get her attention then. I think the first 5 months of her life, before we got her, she was allowed to do anything she wanted. It's a good thing for her she's so darned cute!

I use muzzle for my German shepherd. She is not real hunter, but if she see opossum, she will grab it and bring it home. She doesnÂt hurt it herself, but my neighbor has a Rottweiler who runs lose all the time and he would kill this opossum. I use "Wire Basket Muzzle"

You can use muzzle for your dog too, at least for the first few minutes so animals will have time to run away.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wire Basket Muzzles

I have a adopted dog that loves to chase birds & a yard full of them. She has only ever caught a fledgling house sparrow but . . . I usually knock on the window before I let her out. It tends to get their attention & then they are ready to flee.

This year we had a native high plains pack rat move in & I put up hog wire around the brush pile I built for her so the dog would not root around in it. Hog wire is really thick but has large open spaces for wildlife to go through. It worked fine & I noticed that the birds enjoyed the brush pile more with a little protection too.

In the future I am planning to put up a thicket in one corner & will probably use the wire again to protect that area. With a nice evergreen vine on it you probably wouldn't even notice it was there.

If you don't want to go to the wire trouble you could always install a doorbell that rings outside. That would do for a warning.

Muzzle Suzi. Keep her in the house while you run around the yard barking like a dog, and scaring all wildlife in sight. Knocking into shrubs would help too. Then let muzzled-Suzi out and continue to dash about forewarning all wildlife of her presence. That still won't stop her from scraping things up w/her toenails. However, the aerobic activity should give onlookers something to smile at. (I never heard of hogwire and will have to check into that.)

I hadn't either but it is so sturdy I have to cut it with my bolt cutters. We originally got it to put on top of the trellis we installed for the vines to climb on. Good stuff & glavinized so no rust. I am even using it to put a dove excluder on my new safflower feeder. We have so many doves & they will eat anything but what I really want to attract are the resident cardinals.

You could probably also use welded wire. It's squares are about 2"x4". That's what I used all over my chicken run, with 1/2" hardware cloth on top of it. We also used it to fence in our back yard. But be careful about which to buy....there is a 14 guage and a 12 guage. Buy the 12 guage.....it's alot sturdier.

My (mainly indoor) dog thinks that his mission in life is to keep the squirrels out of the (fenced) yard. Years ago he did manage to get one, which only encouraged him. Now I rattle the doorknob before letting him out. Sometimes it takes a moment, but the squirrels, birds, and neighbor's cats do run for safety before I let him out. The same squirrels and cats just stand and look at me when I go out the other doors, but they recognize the warning at the door that the dog goes out!