October 17, 2005

I woke up at 6am today. I thought I heard someone knock on my door, but it was early I decided to ignore it. Of course, then I couldn't go back to sleep so I got up anyway and no one else in the house was awake. So, I went to check to see if the chicken was still in her safe nest. With everything going on with them I was glad to see that she chose to sleep in her hidden nest last night. She wasn't there so I looked around at all the regular places around my house and I didn't see her. As I'm looking out to the patio I see this black dog (puppy) run across my yard and head to the neighbors house. I knew he was after a chicken.

I opened the door and I heard a chicken cackle and go crazy (there are 2 chickens, 5 chicks and 4 roosters). I ran over to the wall, but there was nothing. The dog had disappeared and there was no chicken or chicks. So, I went to get the paper out front. That's when I saw the dog again and he had a chicken hanging from his mouth. He was behind my neighbors car so I didn't see where he went as I was going over there. It was like a disappearing act. I'm standing there infront of my neighbors house wondering where the f*ck the dog went and out of this garden appears the chicken! She looked dead when she was in his mouth, but I guess she was playing dead which saved her. She got away and the dog bolted out of the garden to try to get her. I scared him in another direction, so the chicken had a chance to run and hide.

She hid inbetween these small bushes we have surrounding the garbage cans and she didn't move. I stayed there until the dog ran away and then woke up my mother. We took the chicken and brought her into our garage. She's in bad shape right now. Pretty much the dog plucked her feathers from her back. She doesn't have any big gashes, but she looks...It's almost enough to want to make you go vegetarian.

And to make matters worse, this is the mom chicken. So where are her chicks? My guess is that since they were next to my neighbors wall, when the dog attacked the chicken tried to defend her chicks who jumped over the wall into the neighbors enclosed yard. So, my mother and I proceeded to gather up the chicks. Hard thing to do. There was one who didn't jump over and we ended up chasing him into our house and we put him in a box. The others, well, I happen to see my neighbor as he was leaving for work and I asked him for permission to go into his yard. He was like "Sure, just go around the side".

These other 4 chicks were easier. They seemed relieved to see us. We put this big box down and I threw some rice at them. They ate and followed it into the box. One of them got out before I could totally close the box so I had to chase him around the yard for a bit, but we got them all. Now they are all in my garage and hopefully the chicken will get better.

I even stopped one of the roaming security guards and asked him about the dogs. He said that they come from the other neighborhood. I think it's too much of a coincidence that they just so happen to appear 2 days after my neighbors formal complaint about the chickens. Whatever.

This is too much drama for one morning, but I'm glad I didn't stay in bed.