Hello. I have a 1 year old...

Question
Hello. I have a 1 year old cocatiel and we are getting a dog soon... will this work out? How do we get them comfortable around eachother (or can we!)? Coulkd you PLEASE tell me what to do!?
Thank you SOOOOO much!,
Mattie


Answer
Hi, Mattie.  Thanks for posting your question.  Sure, it can work out, but it depends on the personality of each.  However, I would try to stay away from a breed of dog whose natural instincts/purpose in life is to harm/kill birds!  Your best bet would be to get a puppy versus an adult dog and let the puppy grow up with the tiel.  What will probably happen is that the tiel will be a bit frightened of the puppy/dog and each/every time the dog puts it's nose up to the tiel to sniff it to see what it is, the tiel will hiss, try to nip at it's nose, and will probably back away from the dog.  The puppy/dog's reaction could vary from being equally frightened to being aggressive.  You'll need to see what the reaction will be for both before pursuing your next step.  Before acquiring the dog, you might want to test it's reaction to birds by showing it a bird (at your home or in the pet shop or other) just to see what it's reaction will be.  I have 3 dogs and 2 cats with 300 birds (although the dogs/cats don't have access to all the birds).  What I've done that works every time is as soon as the dog/pup or cat was brought into the house, I would introduce it to one of my birds.  The usual reaction is that the dog/cat would immediately try to sniff the bird and the bird would nip the nose of the dog/cat.  This is usually all it takes to teach the dog/cat to stay away from the bird (the nip on the nose).  Of course, it might take several nose nips for the dog/cat to learn, but I haven't had it fail yet (of course, the bigger the bird, the bigger the nip and better success)!

Generally, you NEVER want to leave a dog/cat alone with a bird unsupervised by a human, especially if the bird is outside it's cage.  Also, it's a good idea not to clip a bird's wings if there is a dog/cat in the house (and the bird has some freedom) just in case the bird gets on the floor, it has wings so it can fly up to safety.  Even if a bird and dog/cat are buddies, I would never trust the dog/cat alone with the bird (depending on the species of bird of course...I have some amazons with attitudes that can keep a dog/cat in check!).  Depending on the dog/cat's reaction, you may even need to suspend a bird's cage from the ceiling or from a wall in order to keep an aggressive dog/cat from tipping the cage over in order to get to the bird.

My dogs/cats are so used to each other, I can put a bird on a dog's back for a ride.  The cats often play with some of the birds.  However, the one thing I have noticed with both the dogs and cats is that all bets are off when a bird is in flight.  The dogs and cats seem to forget everything they've learned when a bird flies, so be aware of this.

I wish you luck.  Come back if you have more questions.

Chrys