Yesterday was Tuesday, and Lee(my husband) was working all day. So he wasn't here when a cute black and white puppy(with no collar) wandered into our yard. Judgment(7 years old) was excited to see a dog in our yard.
We had all five chickens out of their chicken tractor. I was able to pick up the dog and take him outside of our fenced in yard. The problem was that he was small enough to sneak through a crack where our gate closes. He came back into our yard and chased the bigger chickens.
I grabbed him and told him to stop, and he did. It took us a long time to get the chickens rounded up. Judgment and I took turns holding onto a rope I had tied to the puppy. We finally got them all put away and let the puppy go.
Today the puppy came back while Lee was here. He liked the dog and told it about not chasing our cat or chickens. After the puppy left, we let the chickens back out. The boys and Lee played outside for awhile, then came in.
I heard the chickens peeping loudly. I quickly went outside. I heard peeping getting further and further away. I looked for all the chickens, but the little white one(our only Delaware) was missing! It's buddy, the little brown chicken, was peeping like it does when one of the boys picks up its friend and carries it away.
The two little ones never leave each other, if they can help it.
The puppy came back in our yard, wagging his tail and in a very good mood. So we believed him to be the one who ate our little Delaware. :( We tied him with a rope to a tree. We were going to keep him and train him NOT to eat chickens, but he whined and fussed while we went inside.
I had a hard time with the loss of the chicken. I didn't cry. It was just hard to accept its death. I prayed about it. I knew we were going to kill it eventually, but not while it was so little.
Later that night we went for one of our regular night walks. We took the dog with us. As we were walking down the street some young children came over and told us that it was their dog. I told them this dog came into our yard, and we think it ate one of our chickens. They said they found a bird. It was our little white Delware... still alive!
We took the puppy off the rope, and they gave us back our little bird. She seemed fine, unharmed. Praise God!
