Hi Emma, All you can do is keep working on your recall commands and "spit it" which is a term I use to get my dogs to leave their nylabones in the house when they try to take them outside where the lawnmower chomps them up!
Mice are likely to have fleas hence a risk of tapeworm, birds are notorious for lice so no you don't want her getting into those either. Chasing hens will get her into huge trouble and I'd keep her on leash in the forest in case she spots a deer. A couple of my dogs have bagged themselves birds in the past, the best one was Zulu bringing home a partridge, she has a soft mouth and could work in the field:-) The other incident was a young crow and at that time we weren't overly aware of West Nile, now I'd have sent it for analysis because I suspect it was low flying if not actually dead in the yard when three of my youngsters decided to play "fly birdie fly" with it! Two of them had it by the wings and ran in tandem with the third nipping at the tail feathers. Poor thing was a bit "tatty" when I retreived it. I had two bushes by my front door that birds used to nest in and then the parents would get hysterical everytime we moved so when the babies flew I chopped down the bushes and now they nest in a big spruce far out of reach. My dogs are particularly animated by the cheeky chipmunks and they don't stand a hope in hell of catching them but it provides some entertainment and gets them exercising as the little creatures zoom along the top of the chain link. Rose T.
