Have you ever known a dog to bite a power tool while it's running?

One of my dogs used to attack the vacuum cleaner. So I imagine if I had used power tools around her, she would have attacked them also.
I don’t think your dog is insane. A little berserk maybe…

Thanks @chyna. The situations seem pretty similar. If there are dogs that are into attacking machines, they would have no way of knowing that attacking a running vacuum cleaner and attacking a running chainsaw are two entirely different matters. I’ll just have to keep her inside when I’m using that kind of stuff.

Dogs are like people, not all have common sense. With this in mind, when I am using power tools that could potentially decapitate or scalp my dogs, I lock them in the house before I start. I must admit though I do use the weed whacker (called whipper snipper in Australia) in their presence, it never occurred to me, or apparently to them, that it is something to be attacked.

@rooeytoo I think I have used the chainsaw with her out there before and it hasn’t been a problem, but not the “whipper snipper.” (I like that one. I think I might just start calling my weed whacker a whipper snipper.) :-)

And it never occurred to me that she would try to attack either one of them. But I know now that she just might and will keep her inside when I am using such things.

@lillycoyote – yep probably a good idea. Here is my dog problem. I have recently acquired a young cockatiel and she is so cute. I love to have her out riding on my shoulder, despite the fact that she insists on pooping down my back, however the dingo looks at her and thinks “LUNCH!” I have tried every training technique on the books and so far nothing is working. So the bird stays in her cage unless I pen the pup in another room. I hope she will come to accept the bird as a family member but I am not holding out a great amount of hope!

Perhaps she thinks it is attacking you? My dogs don’t like power tools. They really dislike the noise. I don’t recall them attacking them though.

@rooeytoo Eye matey, that’s a beautiful bird. What’s her name?

Maybe it will all work out, when the creatures get used to each other, though maybe not. I am picturing it in my head and think it would be wonderful if you could go out with the cockatiel on your shoulder and Town Dog at your side. You all would be quite a sight, I think. On the other hand, I don’t want to be sitting in a theatre, watching Meryl Streep playing you in the movie version of your life, in a panic, screaming “The dingo stole my cockatiel!” So I think it is best to take precautions to protect the bird. :-)

@Bellatrix I don’t really know. She barks at lawn mowers. She’s not a big barker or constant barker but if there’s a bunny or a cat on the other side of the fence, or a person walking down the street, or the guy is mowing my next door neighbor’s lawn, she barks. And she barks at these machines of mine, I’ve now discovered. I broke down and got a lawn service a couple of years ago, so it’s been a while since I fired up my own mower. I don’t know how she would react to that. Probably not well.

No, only joggers….down boy, down.

The akita we used to have loved our other cockatiel. You can see here. The new one is Winnie.

I don’t think the dingo is ever going to accept the bird. And the dingo has been known to be walking down the street, leap into the air and take a low slow flying bird just like that! She is a devil dog, I love her!

BIL’s dog would attack the lawnmower, does that count?

We had an English Bulldog that would attack the vacuum cleaner and the lawn mower. We kept her away from everything else because we didn’t know what else she would attack.

Thanks everyone! My dog actually is insane, or possibly possessed by demons, I’m not sure which but it’s good to know that this business of attacking machines is something other dogs do too.

She barks at the vacuum cleaner but has never attacked it. The only machine she’s ever actually attacked was the weed whacker, but I’m kind of glad she did, because I would rather the weed whacker be the warning that she was capable of such things. When it looked like she was maybe about to attack the chainsaw, I already knew that she really might just do it, so I turned it off. The idea that the first indication I might have had that she would attack a running power tool would have been her biting the rotating blade of a chainsaw sends shivers up my spine.

A dog that attacks chainsaws…that’s pretty badass, yo. :D

Not insane at all. The lab down the road would attack my Jeep tires as I slowly drove by.
buy the dog power tools for gifts

She is bad ass! You should see what she’s done to fence. And you will. :-)

She has been absolutely hell bent on escaping from the backyard for the last couple of weeks.

She found a way to slip out underneath the fence so I bought stakes, two varieties, and tried to stake in down. She got out again. I staked it down more. She got out again.

Then, I put more stakes in, she got out again, so I put in more stake and put boards and bricks down, like this and she couldn’t get out from under the fence.

Then she started pounding on the fence, the wire mesh, with her paws and when that didn’t work, she went to the fence post, grabbed the corner of the mesh in her teeth and ripped it right off the the post. She popped the staples right out of the wood and slipped out through the small opening she had made for herself like some kind of shapeshifter.

So I staple-gunned the hell out of it, mesh fencing, and put up this barrier here,, it’s what I had handy that was heavy, because that’s the place where she seems to want to get out.

I went out there today and discovered this.

This is what it’s supposed to look like, of course.

I do find it rather astonishing though, that she was able to carve/bend a nearly perfect circle out the the fencing. I’m not sure quite how she did that with just her head and her teeth.

I don’t know what to do anymore except constant vigilance. I just need to check and make repairs to every day.

And now I’m thinking Lizzie bit the weed whacker in order to test it, to see if it would be powerful enough to get through the fence and when she realized it wouldn’t be much good for that she decided to try and get the chainsaw away from me. She wasn’t going to attack it; she intended to wrestle it from my hands and use it herself.

I love her, but she is not of this world; I am convinced of that.

Guess you’re going to have to opt for a heavier gauge wire fencing. To keep her from digging under I would bury cement blocks along the fence line, that is less expensive than pouring an actual concrete footer. Then if you can wire a piece of galvanized pipe into the bottom of the fencing where it sets on top of the concrete blocks. Or go for an Innotek electric fence and collar. I have been living in rental properties for the last 8 years and didn’t want to go to the expense of dog proofing a fence so that is what I use. They learn after 1 or 2 zaps what the boundaries are and then you are pretty safe. Now before all the animal rights people vote to behead me let me say that my dog kills cats and I do not want her to get out and kill anyone’s pet cat. It is my duty to protect her from herself. So the only way it is safe for her to be in the yard without being chained is the electric fence! The package comes with a dvd that will teach you how to train the dog. I wouldn’t advocate using one until the dog has been properly trained as to what is happening and what is expected from them.

@rooeytoo The fence posts themselves are cemented in but nothing else. She had gotten out several times already. And in terms of the wood and bricks I put down, I tried my best with what I had on hand. I used the cinderblocks that I had and with the rest, I sort made due. Each time I thought I had done enough. I actually thought it was pretty much under control until earlier this evening, when I saw that hole she had managed to make in the fence.

The fence cost me $1500 dollars so I have a significant investment in it already, but the bottom line is that I can’t have her getting out. She is difficult to get back in and not only is that frustrating for me but it is dangerous for her, to be running loose where she might get hit by a car.

I will, one way or the other, have to get this problem solved or else I will have to keep her inside except for walks, and I just can’t do that. She needs to, loves to run around and she just loves the backyard. I don’t want to have to do that, to keep her inside. I think I will start with heavier gauge fencing and use galvanized poultry netting staples like these, rather than the staple gun, to secure it. I bought a box of those but haven’t used them yet because I thought things were finally under control and she seems to be going for the fencing itself now anyway. I think maybe getting heavier gauge fencing, securing it to the posts and rails with the poultry staples and securing the bottom with cinder blocks may be the next step. Hopefully that will work.

I am not sure what you mean by “securing” the bottom with blocks. If the blocks are not buried many dogs will dig under. Whereas if they are dug in, it makes the tunneling much more difficult. I agree it is good to have something non flexible at the bottom though, stapling to boards would probably work.

My dog Lily has a huge problem with any power tools, the vacuum, and cars. She wants to attack all of them. Lily was found a few weeks ago in a friends barn. Trying to figure out how to stop this behavior. Really worries me, I dont want her to get hurt.