cyberninja2601 1,103 Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 Something funny happened this morning. I have a border collie who's about 8 years old and a Australian Shepherd who's 9 months old. The Aussie gets real offended when critters come and take a shit in our back yard. Today something pretty funny happened. Bunnies will come and get shelter in the yard because of some of the shrubs. There were some today and for the first time the two dogs worked together to get them. The herding instinct kicked in. The Aussie is just too fast and chased them down. The collie would cut them off and herd them in a corner Turns out bunnies don't have much stamina. The dogs exhausted them and then caught them. What was funny is that the Aussie is the friendliest dog I have ever seen. It would catch the rabbits and then simply lick their heads. I didn't let the dogs hurt the rabbits. The collie would simply put its paw on the rabbit. The rabbit chase is pretty routine in the morning. Now that the dogs seem to have it figured out, I'll try to record the action. In case you are wondering, I simply picked up the rabbits that were to scared to tired to run and relocated them a couple of miles away from the property. I wonder if rabbits are smart enough to know not to come back to our yard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BO7H B4RRELS 2,447 Posted November 5, 2015 Share Posted November 5, 2015 Haha. That's great. I'd love to see that go down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BB205 11 Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 That would be cool to see the dogs working together like that to herd the rabbits. Impressive they didn't hurt the rabbit. As for if the rabbits are smart enough to not come back in your yard...doubt it. At least the rabbits in our yard are pretty stupid. We have greyhounds which have been taught to chase fake rabbits at the track. We have a pet rabbit and our dogs are fine with her (not that I'd leave them alone together). But in the yard instinct takes over and one of our dogs goes after the rabbits every time. You'd think the rabbits would learn but no they just still hung around summer eating grass right by the door the dogs go out. Luckily she never caught any rabbits because she is on a leash but man she almost broke my arm a couple times when she pulled on the leash trying to get them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deterioration 443 Posted November 6, 2015 Share Posted November 6, 2015 That is actually a cool story, bro. I wish I had a fenced in yard. ^ Same here MrsOwl my dog has almost yanked me off my feet a few times trying to dart at rabbits. I often wonder if he would know what to do with it if he actually caught one. I'd also like to see video. I puppies! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyberninja2601 1,103 Posted November 6, 2015 Author Share Posted November 6, 2015 That would be cool to see the dogs working together like that to herd the rabbits. Impressive they didn't hurt the rabbit. As for if the rabbits are smart enough to not come back in your yard...doubt it. At least the rabbits in our yard are pretty stupid. We have greyhounds which have been taught to chase fake rabbits at the track. We have a pet rabbit and our dogs are fine with her (not that I'd leave them alone together). But in the yard instinct takes over and one of our dogs goes after the rabbits every time. You'd think the rabbits would learn but no they just still hung around summer eating grass right by the door the dogs go out. Luckily she never caught any rabbits because she is on a leash but man she almost broke my arm a couple times when she pulled on the leash trying to get them. The dogs have been taught bite inhibition to make sure they don't hurt anyone (even when playing). They don't even bite hard into their toys. Those dogs will play with anyone or anything without being agresive. I think it's easy to teach a herding dog to do that since you don't want them hurting the herd. I don't know if rabbits did learn, but I do know there were no traces of rabbits today Perhaps the difference in your case is that your dog hasn't actually caught them. That is actually a cool story, bro. I wish I had a fenced in yard. ^ Same here MrsOwl my dog has almost yanked me off my feet a few times trying to dart at rabbits. I often wonder if he would know what to do with it if he actually caught one. I'd also like to see video. I puppies! I be bringing the camera out in morning to see if I can record it. If I can I will post. Toby (The Aussie) is a bit of a camera hog anyways Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BB205 11 Posted November 7, 2015 Share Posted November 7, 2015 The dogs have been taught bite inhibition to make sure they don't hurt anyone (even when playing). They don't even bite hard into their toys. Those dogs will play with anyone or anything without being agresive. I think it's easy to teach a herding dog to do that since you don't want them hurting the herd. That makes sense. You certainly don't want herding dogs to actually hurt the animals they are herding. With Greyhounds there are some that have a high prey drive but others have no prey drive. The interesting thing is that there is no correlation between greyhounds that won a lot of races and ones that have a high prey drive. We always get the ones with no prey drive since we have cats and other small pets. I think all Deena wanted to do is find the rabbit's "squeaker" like the squeaker in her dog toys. Of course the rabbit wouldn't be too happy about that. In the house though she is a bit scared of our cats and pet rats especially when the cats are chasing each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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