am i right in thinking any dog thats a good ratter would kill chooks too?
No, both our terriers are excellent with the hens. The hens are bigger than them
and can deliver a painful peck, or do the scary ruff and wings trick. We wouldn't trust them with small chicks though. The only dog which killed some hens was our son's Irish Wolhound when she was an exuberant pup, and she was easily cured by hanging one of the corpses around her neck for a couple of days.
I don't think it's that terriers are clever, but they are are keen and definitely single-minded to the point of pain. If ours are digging something out they don't hear us calling - it's not that they ignore us, just don't hear. They will go on until they are so thirsty they are almost collapsing, but won't give up. They have an unfortunate habit of digging under the hay stack - we build the bales on pallets, which means that if they get stuck right underneath, my long-suffering OH has to rebuild the whole stack further along just to rescue them. We have never had terriers before and probably would not again - their big advantage, apart from the rat catching, is that they can be tucked under your arm when necessary - quite a change from Wolfies
It took us years to train the Cairn x Patterdale to come when she's called but she's got the idea now
. They have both run off a few times but always come back eventually, once they realise that the rabbit sniff they were following has evaporated. In fact they follow rabbit trails backwards (much to the amusement of the rabbits
, so back to the burrow, rather than trying to catch the rabbit itself - back in the burrow is where the bite-sized snacks are sleeping.
Our Cairn x Patterdale was hit by a car once - a merc - but she had not a scratch, whereas the Merc had a large dinge in the front