I was off that day. I was sitting on the couch eating a bowl of cereal, when I heard a bunch of squawking coming from the chickens. When I looked out the window, I saw a strange dog chasing them and an even stranger man chasing the dog. Immediately, I knew what was going to happen. I called Juliette (our 100 lb. Airedale), who had been sleeping at the time, and she sprang into action. I opened the front door and told her to go. I have never seen her run so fast. Keep in mind, that normally, she is a very lazy dog. I ran after her yelling at her to get 'em. She did. I followed her around and behind the coop and saw the strange dog gnawing on Fancy. Jules leapt into action and immediately began dominating the other dog, pulling him off of poor fancy. She had him on his back pretty fast. I was pretty impressed. There were pretty gray feathers and blood everywhere and fancy couldn't even walk. The feathers trailed all over the lawn and around the coop. I scooped her up, call Jules off the dog, and ran into the house. I wrapped Fancy in an old towel and called the vet. When I got off the phone, the strange man and his strange dog were waiting in my kitchen! He handed me a piece of paper with his contact information on it and said to call if we take her to the vet. I took the note and said thanks. It feels like things were going so fast at that time. It seems like a blur now. This was the first attack on one of our babies.
Anywho, as soon as I got into the car with my burrito wrapped chicken, I broke down. I called Mike and we decided that we would meet at the vet. Poor Fancy would barely move and she began to open mouth breath (which means she was really stressed out).
I was a mess. I knew she could go down hill quick and I really didn't want to lose her. I arrived at the vet with swollen, red eyes and hiccuping. Literally, I was a mess. The immediately took her out of my arms and into a room to be checked out.
Fancy had really big gashes all over her back and the vet said that out options were to just give her antibiotics and hope for the best or to give her a little anesthesia to pluck the feathers around the wounds, clean it, put in a drain and sew it up. He also thought she could use an x-ray. We chose option 2, but without the x-ray.
We went home and returned a few ours later to pick her up. They handed her to me right from the incubator. She was a little unhappy about leaving the warm. When we arrived home, we placed her in a kennel in the storage room to give her a chance to heal before putting her back into the coop. She was there for two weeks. She was so funny during that time. She would cuddle with me on the couch to watch a little TV, fly onto the baby gate and then run around the living room pooping everywhere! That silly chicken!
If anyone in Spokane needs a good chicken doctor, I would recommend Pontys in Otis Orchards. They were wonderful!
2 comments:
WOW, you are lucky to have the guy pay the vet bill. One of my chickens was attacked by a dog and I rescued it. I bathed the chicken who had little feathers left and also kept inside for a couple of weeks. It made it and eventually grew all the feathers back. Next time the dog was at my house I shot it with a pellet gun right in the rump. I normally would not do that but nieghbors who live up the road have been warned three times. Dog took off running and has not been back since.
That is a good idea shooting it was a pellet gun. I felt so terrible for Fancy. We lost our beautiful and sweet Barred Rock, Dolly, to a stupid dog in January. It was so sad. I cried for week!
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