Dog Whisperer -- Corrections

What did he just teach this dog, to ignore the chicken? One day in fact it probably will ignore the chicken, because it just learned that when it sees a chicken it gets a smack to the face, That would probably make me avoid it too. It would also make me fearful of the person delivering the pop to my face. So what would I do to help solve the problem of chasing chickens, which was this dog's issue. I would start at a very far distance and every time the dog looked away from where the bird was I would use a target phrase like yes or good or a clicker and reward the dog with a high value reward, be that a treat or toy or a game of chase (something other than the chicken). This way the dog learns that ignoring the bird equals good things. I would gradually increase to proximity to the chicken. This would be a very hard behavior to train out of a dog, especially a dog bred to hunt and retrieve birds, so the value of the reward would need to be super high! Sad thing is I do believe I saw this episode and I believe this dog is owned by John Grogan who wrote the book Marley And Me. I shudder to think of the behavior problems this new dog of theirs might have, as if Marley didn't have enough. By the way those tongue flicks the dog makes are all signs on nervousness, I figure editing has taken out the initial smacks that have now gotten the dog to the point where it is laying quietly next to the bird instead of up bouncing trying to get at it. It looks like the dog is saying oh dear they made me down stay here but I know he's going to hit me for being here, but that is just my speculation.