My pup, Tye, the gentlest girl, the sweetest thing, the nicest pet, turned into a Chicken Killer this past weekend.
To give you a feel for my home, Tye and I live in the country, about 15 minutes north of Asheville. In the summer I cannot even see any of my neighbors. I am not physically near them, nor do I really know any of them. I am on waving terms with some folks out my way, but when I go home I usually want to hunker down with a book or a bowl of popcorn or a dumb tv show. I do not, usually, want to go visit with anyone. I LOVE visiting here at work, but I like my solitude at home.
One of my neighbors, the ones to the south, have started keeping chickens. At least, I THINK they have started keeping chickens. They might be from the farm across the road. Or maybe they belong to someone further away. What matters most, for this story at least, is that those chickens are not kept penned up, but are allowed to roam around – most pertinently in MY yard.
Tye, my sweet dog, is a bird, squirrel, chipmunk and cat chaser. She stalks ducks at the pond where we walk. She tears after random beings out in the woods when we hike. I have never seen her catch anything. I guess I might have wondered what she would do it she DID.
Ahem.
Last Sunday morning I was quietly cooking in my cabin’s kitchen. My sister and niece were visiting. They were, to be precise, sleeping. Or, at the very least, dozing. I was cutting fruit, planning the meal for the 8 friends who were due to arrive in a couple of hours. And I was also reviewing my bee knowledge, since at 11, I was going to be tested to become a certified level beekeeper.
All of a sudden I hear Tye barking and, simultaneously, I heard a tremendous squawking. The neighbor chickens had wandered into our yard and Tye, gentle love, was on top of the intruders. She barked. The chicken shrieked. Tye barked louder. The chicken howled and, in a rsuh, flew up onto the top of my car.
I ran out of the kitchen, yelling at Tye to leave the chicken, now safe on the car, alone. But Tye, deaf to me, circled the car, leaping, barking, leaping higher, barking louder. The chicken, still safe, flapped and squawked some more. And then, as I watched, as I was ABOUT to grab Tye’s collar, the chicken slipped off the top and, caught in a slippery, dewy surface, slid down the windshield, off the hood and onto the driveway where Tye.
Grabbed. And caught. And shook. And shook harder. And. In a horridly short amount of time. Killed it.
Feathers were all over the place. The chicken, very dead, very suddenly dead, lay in a heap. Tye pranced and bragged and circled and strutted. I locked her into the kitchen, put a bucket over the poor chicken. And when the men of the morning arrived, I played girl and got them to pick it up and take it away.
Brunch was great.
And yes, I passed the test.
And, just to be appropriately congratulatory, I gave Tye a treat and told her that she was a fine protector, even though she was, in that instant, also a chicken killer. Who knew she could do such a thing?
