June 19, 2013
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Chicken Farming with Dogs
The Ladies have survived 36 hours in our care now. This morning Nancy checked on their food and water, let them outside and they bolted through the portal, skipping across their tiny yard, chest-bumping each other. I have no idea what that means in the mind of a chicken. As far as I can tell the vigil you see above this paragraph is barely noteworthy, inside the yard.
The chickens themselves are hard to photograph. This is because I have a digital camera which preserved, in all of its glory, that 10 second lapse between the time you press the shutter button and the time the shutter responds. For a chicken, this allows time to lurch forward, backward, or turn her head 60 degrees. When you are trying to convince the camera to ignore the wire between you and the chickens, that lapse can become fatal. The chicken moves, the camera thinks, Hey–fencing! and you get a great shot of chicken fencing.
The ladies inside their enclosure.
Anyway, the dogs came home last night (the dogs go to work with Nancy during the day) and the chickens were still there. Riley was beside himself. My big, goofy good ole boy who needs a chorus of Eye of the Tiger just to eat his breakfast determined he was a Bird Dog, and he needed to get those birds! He barked. He whined. He dug at the fence. I squirted him with water, which he does not like and he was annoyed, but undeterred, so I squirted him again. And again. And again. And again. And again… The last time I squirted him he turned on me, thinking bad dog thoughts, and then he thought oops! that’s Cheryl and he did a puppy wiggle and stalked away. I could hear him muttering as he went. Stupid woman, keeps chickens in the back yard with a bird dog…has no appreciation for my work here as a dog…sprays me with water, *&^$@()@&^… Now I have to go sleep in the hostas again…
Annie sought other respite.
This was originally Riley’s shelter as well, but Riley… Well, Riley was in the hostas. Like every little sister known, she sees no reason to work out her own solutions when she can simply steal whatever he leaves unguarded.
And today a new day begins….
