You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

I know what you are thinking. No, this is not another movie post. This has to do with an incredibly hard morning at our house.

Chris is on call this weekend. He was out the door at the crack of dawn this morning. He didn't even get the chance to take care of the animals before leaving. About 8 o'clock Shaggy started barking. Tamarin brought him in and comes running back to me saying there are boys outside.

Turns out these boys and their two dogs are trying to chase off a stray. It's a Bernese mix that has been around on and off the last couple of weeks. Seeing a disaster in the making I bring my dogs in and come back to help the kids chase off this dog. As I am walking toward them he spots my chickens headed for the barn and makes a break for them. The first thing I can find is a fallen branch. I grab it and run to the barn only to find he's disappeared. Instead I find the aftermath of a massacre. Judging from the feathers, we lost three or four chickens last night.

As I'm searching the area for carcasses I hear a dog screeching. I turn back to see these boys screaming at their brindle dog. My heart sunk... all I can think is Tamarin opened the door and Shaggy is being killed. I run back to the fence line. It's not Shaggy. He has turned on their pit bull. This pit is maybe slightly smaller than he. He has this dog by the neck and has every intention of killing her. I can see the blood covering her face. She is crying every chance she can get her breath, but can hardly manage with the grip he has on her.

I've rescued dogs for years. I've had more than a dozen dogs at a time. This was NOT a hierarchy fight. This dog was going to kill. I yelled at the boys to go get their parents. Their dad came running a couple of minutes later. He was practically standing on top of them before the brindle let go. The poor pit bull took off as fast as it could leaving a trail of blood. Another man came running and chased after the pit.

The father explained the pit just showed up a few weeks ago. They had been feeding it, but the two weren't getting along. He said they were going to get rid of the pit as soon as possible and apologized profusely. I explained to him from what I saw the pit bull was not the problem. He was yelling at the other man that there were kids nearby and expressing his anger at what could have happened. They were both convinced the problem was the pit bull, not the brindle.

This brindle has been on my porch many mornings. He is on my property every other day. After witnessing this there is no doubt in my mind he could kill my children.

I stepped back inside and not ten minutes later there were two more dogs wandering up to my barn. I found another tuft of feathers as I was chasing them off. So make that a probable five dead chickens. One of these dogs turned to challenge me. I turned on my alpha and it backed down. I'd never seen this one before.

No more nice mama. Time has come to get serious about the stray dog problem.

Happy early Christmas, Chris.



Before any of you freak out, it's a pellet gun. It's not to kill, it's to scare. And it is LOUD. I won't even need a pellet in it to scare the crap out of any dog on my property.

There is no animal control out here. The options are this or the real thing. I happily relocate friendly dogs. This year I have already helped five dogs get back home and taken another to a rescue. These dogs have no tags or collars, the brindle is the only one that has a home to my knowledge. They are not willing to get close enough for me to touch them, much less relocate them. I'm not going to wait until one of them attacks my children to take the offensive. Chris is going to patch the holes in the fence we know they have been using. I wish I could afford the six grand to put up a perimeter fence. Until then, this is the only option. Let's hope once the fence is patched we'll never have to use it.