# Any advice on introducing cockatiel to pet dog.



## Troy

Hi,
We've recently bought a cockatiel and are wondering if anyone has experience on the best way to introduce them to their pet dog -- we have a shizu/poodle mix. We've kept zebrafinches for a long time, and the dog largely ignores them, but is very curious about the bigger bird. I'm wondering if anyone has had success in introducing their two pets and having them co-exist, or do we always have to lock up the dog when we take the tiel out of its cage. Any experience in this area would be appreicated.


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## sweetrsue

Far too often a dog even one who has happily ignores the bird for some time. Years even, has suddenly decided to snap at the bird. All it takes is one snap and the bird could be a goner! I would not attempt to introduce the dog to the bird. In fact I would make the dog be out of the room when the bird was out.


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## Tike2

Well, I have to shih tzus... when I brought home my first bird in June, 08, my little female tzu was scared to death, she hid under the bed for a couple of months, my male was very interested in Tiki.. I worked with Tiki the first few wks with dogs being in another room, I finally let Bandit, the male investigate with me supervising of course. Now my little female has shown interest over the last couple of months. I have Tiki and Torch in my computer room, with playstations to be on and such, the dogs also join us in the computer room. I always supervise. On occasion the birds fly down to the floor, the dogs want to sniff them, but don't show aggression. But I would never leave them alone with the birds as one never knows what they might do. So I guess if it works for you, take your bird out and while holding him/her perched on your finger or lap, let your dog greet your tiel... but I have read not to let the dog lick on the bird as there is something in the saliva that could harm the bird. It all takes time.


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## Renae

sweetrsue said:


> Far too often a dog even one who has happily ignores the bird for some time. Years even, has suddenly decided to snap at the bird. All it takes is one snap and the bird could be a goner! I would not attempt to introduce the dog to the bird. In fact I would make the dog be out of the room when the bird was out.


I agree with Sue.

While some dogs may be fine with a bird around (supervised) it doesn't take much for the dog to suddenly jump on the bird and kill it. Even if you are in the room with the dog and the bird, there's no saying the dog's not going to sit there and not touch it.. anything could set your dog off. 

I wouldn't do it, I don't trust dogs, even if you have the most lovable dog ever, you'll put the bird at a huge risk, and being your first bird, I don't think you'd wanna lose him/her. 

It would be better just to have the dog in another room/outside while your bird is out.. saves the bird from being ripped to pieces.. which could happen before you know it.


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## atvchick95

I don't have any tips right now , because my pup is scared to death of the birds BUT she will sit on my bed or the floor at a distance and watch them play But if one makes a sudden movement or bangs a toy or flaps real hard she gets scared and runs off to hide 

but she loves watching them play this morning she fell asleep on my feet watching them play 

She doesn't even bother the wild birds, I throw all my bird food (from giving the inside birds fresh food) out in my yard by my porch 

So its nothing to walk out and have 30 plus starlings in my yard and all fly off in different directions Most dogs get excited and run after them Not her she either stops dead in her tracks or just walks off the porch like they were never there

Now I know it'll change (even know i hope it doesn't) she'll be 6 months old tom. and i've had her since she was 2 months old So i would assume the biggest Part of her wanting the birds would be in this puppy stage

But be very careful because Dog, Cat and Human saliva is toxic to birds 



> Q. What are some common hazards?
> A.
> Animals (Cat and dog saliva is very hazardous to birds)


http://www.upatsix.com/faq/hazards.htm


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## Lola's_mommy

I have a dog who would love to say hi to Lola but Lola sees him as a threat and will hiss and try to bite him. One, I don't let my dog near Lola because it upsets her. Two, he is a doberman, very friendly, but very big. In his excitement, he could accidently hurt her. I think birds, cats, dogs, can get along, you just have to know your animals and always be present because sometimes the unexpected can happen and you sure don't want it to end in disaster.


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## sweetrsue

It dosen't matter how much supervision is given. Even if you are sitting right there. I know of a woman who had a trusted dog and a much loved parrot. She was doing some cage cleaning and was on the floor with the dog and the bird was on top of the cage. She shifted the cage and startled the bird who took off suddenly. The bird was within 18" of the dog when it took flight. So was the owner of both. All it took was a moment of excitement for the bird to be killed by the dog and Mom was an up close witness. It doesn't matter how close you are. You can't prevent something like that. Here is just one the posts I found:

I don't care what anyone says about a dog I learned first hand that they can't be trusted.My dogs manages to break the latch on the door and grabbed a hold of two of my birds.It was a good thing we acted quickly and only one needed vet care.She was in shock and no bite marks were found but lots of feathers were
losts.Fluids were given for the shock and she was observed for some time.Now the dogs are kept behind a locked door along with the cat.There will be no more opportunities like that.We love all our animals to allow something like this to happen.
 
​


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## Kestrel

I think that the potential for a dog to be dangerous to a bird depends greatly on that dog's breed. Many dogs were bred to be hunters of small animals, and as such, you can expect your terrier and hound to be a far greater danger to your birds and other small animals than, say, your corgi or sheltie. Herding dogs are probably the most accomodating around other small animals and birds because they were bred to protect these animals, not destroy them.

As a consequence, I personally would not let my mother's west highland white terrier, for instance, to come anywhere near my small animals. However, my own pet pembroke welsh corgi has shown minimal interest. She's gentle and not easily startled, so I have little worries about her being around my tiel, or my other 26 reptiles. That's not to say that I do not supervise. Despite the multiple opportunities she may have had to attack a scurrying gecko, or nab a jumping one from the air, or react negatively to Bijou's flapping, she's more or less proven her dependability around my critters.


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## Bea

I don't have all my birds and my dog out in the same room at the same time, simply because i have too many to supervise everything that's going on. However when i had fewer birds my dog would happily sleep on the lounge or at my feet while the birds were flying around. The only problems i ever ran into is when the budgie brats wanted to annoy Mickey. When that happened i either put the birds in the cage or Mickey out of the room - he's good with birds but i'm not going to make him sit and let birds pull his hair and expect nothing to happen. I do still have him around if i just have Zoe out, or maybe just LC, it just depends on how Mickey's behaving on any particular day, and how the birds are being.


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## bigmikey36

I think that you wouldn't put your children in harms way and introduce them to potentially dangerous people so why would you even consider doing it to your bird? But hey thats just my opinion
Mikey


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## Terri Peters

I have pretty much spent my life with dogs of one kind or another. Some dogs (a very small percentage) can live with birds and never do them any harm what-so-ever, but that percentage is extremely small. I've raised, owned and/or shown miniature pinschers for about 15 years and there is one thing I know is that this breed and hundreds like them were born and bred to hunt and/or kill. In my case Miniature Pinschers were bred to rid barns of all varmint of one kind or another. This instinct is still alive and kicking in my dogs. I would no sooner attempt to train one of my dogs to live in harmony with my birds than I would ask a fish to please stay dry. It just is not going to happen. It is my duty as a pet owner to protect my pets and that means protecting my birds from my dogs. Under no circumstances would I ever punish one of my dogs for only doing what has been bred into them for hundreds of years. It is a balancing act around here that works well only because I know what can and will happen and I never attempt to undo years of genetic breeding because I decided to ask my dogs to live with what they consider prey.

I see to many pet owners that try to humanize their pets by thinking they can teach a pet to live with all family pets peacefully. For example and this is a true story; A lady I know owned two terriers also owned a ferret. One day her dogs killed her ferret and she just couldn't understand why they did that. She then said, "They knew how much I loved my ferret." No, they did not know how much she loved her ferret. Love is a human emotion and where our pets often make us think they are capable of love in they way we know and understand it, they don't. She had two dogs that were bred to kill rodents and couldn't understand why they killed her rodent, she humanized her dogs.

There are no introductions here and there are no goals of my dogs and my bird living in perfect harmony. Animals simply can not, do not and will not think in that way. Every dog of every breed was created by man to do a job and those jobs are to protect, herd, retrieve or hunt and none of those jobs has a caged pet bird being safe around a dog. 

Where my miniature pinschers would kill my bird just for the pleasure of the hunt I have a Labrador retriever that wouldn't ever attempt to hurt my bird in the way the min pins would. However, let Holly fly through the room and land on the floor my lab would be up in an instant, pick up Holly in his mouth and bring her back to me... why?? Because that is what he does, he isn't a hunter but he is a retriever and anything that moves away is to be brought back in his world.

Take all precautions that are required to keep all of your pets safe and never let your guard down. 

Terri ~


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## sweetrsue

All dogs are simply adaptations of the wolf. Wolves in the wild are meat eating pack animals that have to exploit every opportunity to get fed. So thousands of years of instinct were present before we got into the game to train dogs to our bidding. Most of which still involved killing small animals. It's just nature...as much as you would like it to be otherwise it just isn't.


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## Lola's_mommy

I think herding dogs would be an exception. They are bred to herd animals, not to kill them...


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## sweetrsue

That's why I said "Most of Which" rather than all of which.


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## Lola's_mommy

sweetrsue said:


> That's why I said "Most of Which" rather than all of which.


I wasn't trying to undermine what you said, I just had thought of a particular breed of dog that may be able to be sociable with other types of animals


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## Troy

Thanks for the input. I just wanted to get a feel if other people had had success. I see the answer is largely no, so I won't bother trying down the road. As we just got our tiel several days ago, we are still working on gaining her trust ourselves, as she is just getting used to her new surroundings and us.


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