Chasing Chickens

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| Print | By | December 3, 2007 2:06 PM

We took my dogs with us to visit my parents over the holiday weekend. Zeke and Sumner live for trips to “Club Med” … they get 10 wooded acres:

a swim-friendly pond (if mud and creepies don’t bother you):

and best of all:

My parents have a gaggle of semi free-range chickens that never fail to enchant my dogs. And by “enchant” I mean “taunt them by merely existing on this planet.” We learned the hard way that they chickens need to be caged when the guys visit, as they once chased a rooster up on to the roof, and scared another chicken so severely that it fell to the ground and played dead for five full minutes.

Zeke and Sumner begin every trip outside by racing around the pen a few dozen times, convinced that the next trip around the corner will magically uncover the portal into chicken nirvana. The chickens squawk, the dogs snort, everyone gets exercise and no one gets killed. It’s a win-win.

Their maiden voyage to the coop on this visit started off with the usual dashing and clucking. Then Murphy’s Law kicked in, and a chicken managed to slip through the tiniest of holes in the fencing and out into the yard.

Now, these particular chickens can fly, but for some reason this one opted to run and hop across the lawn, putting her within inches of Sumner’s gaping maw. His mouth was full of feathers before I could even open mine. The chicken managed to pull free, and the chase began anew, with Sumner doing best “border collie gone bad” impersonation and Zeke acting as wingman.

Trust me, I to stop the attack but my dogs were deep in the primal zone … the promise of fresh chicken just inches away overrode their years of training. Plus there was a teeny tiny part of me that was enjoying the spectacle. I chased them and hollered for them to stop (I had no desire to witness a chicken murder), but at the same time I was laughing at the absurdity of the scenario. We all looked ridiculous.

I finally managed to snag Sumner as he ran by me, ending the pursuit. After bringing the guys into the house I ran back outside to check on the victim, worried that she’d been scared to death.

The scene of the crime:

I found her hiding under the coop:

When I reached for her she screamed – no lie—like a woman being attacked. She opened her beak and let out a bloodcurdling shriek that brought probably scared the neighbors. I held the chicken for a few minutes, calmed her down (she seemed to appreciate the gentle attention), then put her back in the coop: