Conures and other pets

[MayteAndJolijn]

Hi! I have a question..do any of you guys have experience with green cheeks and other pets? We have had our two feathery friendly fellahs Fish and Chips in our lives for two years now, and they are just the best. My partner has always dreamed of having a dog, though... I've seen it go well, the owners of the parrot store closeby have two dogs and a cat walking around all day and they won't give any of the birdies a second glance. We have friends with budgies and a dog, too. My partner has dreamed of a dog all her life, and we want to look into the possibility. But what is your experience? How to train the dog to not snap at the birds? I'm crazy about my two featherballs, and their safety is my priority!
The dog we were looking to adopt is a podenco, very docile and good natured, wouldn't hurt a fly... however, it is a dog breed used for hunt. Is that possibly more problematic? I would love to hear experiences and opinions.

 

[chris-md]

You absolutely can have a dog and a bird in your house, you just have to exercise extreme caution. Never let the bird and dogs out together in the same room. Keep the bird out of dog reach at all times.

It’s risk management, that’s all! We dogsit, at times having upwards of 5-6 dogs in our house (rare but it happens; 1-3 is more likely). We have strict rules about how we handle Parker, how we pull him out of cage, etc. to ensure he remains safe in this environment.

And take heart: we’ve watched upwards of 100 unique dogs across dozens of breeds of all breed types, and maybe only 5-6 were completely obsessed with Parker. Most largely ignored him. Even birding dogs poodles and cockers largely ignored him!

That said, if you do wind up with a dog that has high prey drive, dog trainers would know how to help ramp that down a bit (can’t eliminate it, but it comes down to impulse control). Doesn’t mean you let your guard down, just means the dog won’t obsess around the cage or follow you while holding the bird hoping to get their one chance (because they only have to get lucky once, you have to get lucky 100% of the time).

Go for it! A bird doesn’t have to stop you, by any means.

 

[SailBoat]

There is no question that my good friend is an excellent example of knowing the rules and following them to the "T". But, the vast majority of mixed homes do not and would not follow his mandates of separation.

Humans as a group are prone to becoming lacks and its not long before everyone is sharing the living space. So much for being 100% -- the contact is made and you are Rushing to a Vet ER with a seriously injured Parrot. And, that is when you find that Vet ER's are set-up to handled Dogs and Cats and not much else.

We cannot tell you what to do, but only provide knowledge regarding what are the dangers. May you choose wisely.

 

[wrench13]

It all boils down to: Its perfectly OK, until it isn't. All it takes is a split second, a real split second. I will relate 2 things.

One, my last parrot a BeeBee parrot, was mouth mauled by my kid's dog, some sort of terrier. One second they were separated by a table and in the blink of an eye he was in her mouth. Luckily he was OK, physically.

Two, yes I have a dog. She is 14 yrs old, and basically eats, sleeps and goes to the bathroom. SO I am not worried about her grabbing Salty. Are we going to get another dog when she passes on? No, we are not.

 

[Gemster]

I know a dog trainer who had a podenco that was extremely stressed out about wildlife and would be sick for days after seeing prey. She was then trained to be calm in all environments, including running deer that were very close. This training was initiated for the well-being of the dog, the owner and wildlife. In this case, the dog was a rescue and was allowed to hunt in the previous home. This meant the dog still had to be supervised because the hunting was already rehearsed, but this made the dog much more reliable around animals.
Training an ex-hunting dog will make your bird safer but not 100% safe as previous behaviours can always regress.

If your dog was not a hunting dog previously, i would still do training. I, personally, trust (trained) dogs a lot more than birds.

You could also train the cue leave-it for your dog so that if he was ever to stare at your conures you could cue the behaviour.

Build a recall to be a very strong behaviour, as soon as you say your cue (‘here’ or ‘come’) your dog should stop whatever they are doing and turn running towards you.

 

[MayteAndJolijn]

Thank you guys for the thorough answers..I also like to be on the safe side of things, and it wóuld be truly difficult to keep groups of family members physically separated in different parts of the house, seeing as ideally you would want to spend the maximum amount of spare time in their company.. my partner has dreamt of having a dog all her life, but in honesty, I don't see how it can be done in a practical and safe way, while still giving everybody the attention they deserve. Anyway, we will do some serious head-scratching, because the birdies are already in our lives, and we mean to keep them there!