Stoopid chicken meets not-too-bright dog.

Hilarity conspicuously fails to ensue.

Beautiful morning here in Joel’s Gulch. Crystalline blue sky, hardly a breeze, a little cool but all in all a great day to get the hell out of the cabin and take your Corgi for a long walk.

Everything was fine, Torso Boy had a nice sniff of, well, everything, peed on what little he could, seemed to enjoy himself and get a little exercise for once. All would have been well if I hadn’t taken him past Landlady’s for morning chicken chores.

Sometimes when you’re not paying enough attention, a hen will let her curiosity get the better of her and send her out the door for a shot at freedom. Normally she takes one look at horrible, horrible freedom and wants right back in. Normally she’s not jumped by a delighted Corgi.

Sigh: Laddie has no concept of protecting useful livestock or poultry. He may or may not comprehend the fine line between “herding” and “chasing,” but in practice they do seem the same to him and it’s certain that the chicken recognized no such difference. See the dog, freak right the hell out and run away. And so in an instant, with the help of my trusty stunted little hound, a minor hassle became a big frickin’ deal. Because there was no way this chicken was letting me get within ten feet of her. Oh, by this time she wanted back into the chicken yard in the very worst way so she wouldn’t go far – but accepting my help was not on the table.

I have noticed before, when this happened, that invariably the chicken really really wants back in the chicken yard oh just in the very worst way. It has also occasionally occurred to me that I perhaps went to extremes in sealing those perfectly good gates shut. They need to be tight against predators, of course, and gaps need to be wired shut against pullets wandering away. But they’re hens now, not pullets, and not all that extra hardware cloth is strictly required.

So rather than fruitlessly chase her around, I spent a couple of minutes unsewing the chicken wire and hardware cloth from the big gate, pulled it open just a little, then went and chased her past the opening. As hoped, she popped right inside as if she’d really pulled one over on me. Crisis dealt with, and Laddie got yelled at and splashed with water and generally made to feel like the cause of the problem which he surely was.

By the time I finally rounded up the chicken and secured the gate, of course he had completely forgotten the incident and was ready for the rest of his walky.