I have been confronted with an opportunity to adopt a new dog. He is half pit bull, half hound with high ratio of beagle. He is under two years old, and his current owners neglect him, though they don't abuse him. He's also very calm and friendly, and my friend has seen him catch rabbits. All of this sounds really good to me except that we have chickens. My parents say that it would be extremely difficult to train a pit bull/hound to stay away from chickens, but my friend, who has owned many well behaved dogs in his life, says that he will do whatever I say if I just feed him well and treat him right.
In any case, we need a new dog soon as our current one is now over ten years old. We're trying to decide what breed we do want, if not a pit bull/hound. We'd like it to have certain qualities in the following priority order:
1. Don't kill chickens
2. Bark at coyotes in the night
3. Don't wander away from home
4. Kill rabbits in the garden without digging up all our crops
5. Kill various other garden pests like raccoons, 'possums, or voles
Our top picks so far are retrievers, shepherds, and schnauzers. The one thing that bothers me about retrievers is that they've supposedly been bred to have a soft bite, so as not to damage the things they're retrieving. As such, I don't know if they have the instinct to kill the animals they catch. Schnauzers and shepherds, on the other hand, are very intelligent and busy dogs. I'm certain that I could train them to accomplish everything on the list, but I don't think we have enough jobs to keep their minds occupied all the time and I've heard they start to get mischievous when they're bored.
Is there a perfect breed for me that I haven't heard of? Should I just go with one of the three on the list? Or am I overthinking it all and I should settle for the pit bull/hound? As a side note, don't worry about the fate of the pit bull/hound. If I don't take him, my friend will.
In any case, we need a new dog soon as our current one is now over ten years old. We're trying to decide what breed we do want, if not a pit bull/hound. We'd like it to have certain qualities in the following priority order:
1. Don't kill chickens
2. Bark at coyotes in the night
3. Don't wander away from home
4. Kill rabbits in the garden without digging up all our crops
5. Kill various other garden pests like raccoons, 'possums, or voles
Our top picks so far are retrievers, shepherds, and schnauzers. The one thing that bothers me about retrievers is that they've supposedly been bred to have a soft bite, so as not to damage the things they're retrieving. As such, I don't know if they have the instinct to kill the animals they catch. Schnauzers and shepherds, on the other hand, are very intelligent and busy dogs. I'm certain that I could train them to accomplish everything on the list, but I don't think we have enough jobs to keep their minds occupied all the time and I've heard they start to get mischievous when they're bored.
Is there a perfect breed for me that I haven't heard of? Should I just go with one of the three on the list? Or am I overthinking it all and I should settle for the pit bull/hound? As a side note, don't worry about the fate of the pit bull/hound. If I don't take him, my friend will.