Saturday, November 1, 2014

Good Shock Collars Make Good Neighbors

Thursday evening we came home about an hour late, and found three boxers in our BARn field where the chickens like to browse. Not boxers, like muscular sweaty men with 0.5 % body fat, swinging their padded fists and clobbering the noggins of their opponents. No. Boxers. The dogs that I do not find aesthetically pleasing, nor wish to find roaming suspiciously about Hick's chicken zone.

I stopped T-Hoe in the middle of the gravel road and glared at those boxers. I know they belong to the neighbors across the road. The ones whose dogs have already killed several chickens, though only one which has been admitted to. I knew they had one boxer, and that long-tailed standard poodle who invade our homestead as soon as The Pony and I drive away each morning. The two bonus boxers were unknown to me until this moment.

Those dogs had the nerve to turn and look at me over their muscular shoulders, toned from chicken-chasing, no doubt, like I was the intruder. They gave me that faux surprise expression, like Jerry in George's hospital room when Elaine walked in as he was pushing the pillow onto George's face to put him out of his self-requested misery. Those dogs might as well have said, "Val. What are YOU doing here?" One of them was in abominable shape for a boxer. Her belly hung down nearly to the ground. She looked as if she'd recently eaten a Saint Bernard and a Great Pyrenees. Like a turducken, she was a Boxbernees. She really needs Jenny Craig. And not for a snack.

I wish I had taken a picture of them standing there so insouciantly, as if they were inspecting their personal chicken herd. Then there's no neighborly denying. But I did not think of preserving evidence. I put the windows down and hollered, "Get out of here!" That usually works from the porch. That, and the memory of Hick shooting one of them with a paintball gun, I suppose. One walked slowly across the road in front of T-Hoe, maintaining eye contact all the way. Then he stood on the grassy strip between the road and his other neighbor's horse fence. I hollered some more. Not so much for the dogs, but hoping the neighbors would hear and call their murderers back. That didn't happen.

This morning, Hick returned from his mysterious trip to town. He didn't stay long, no doubt because he has his own barbershop now. "I seen a pile of chicken feathers beside the road, next to our buddy's horse fence."

"Huh. That's no surprise. The chicken killers were prowling around your BARn field Thursday night. I know we don't have near as many chickens as we used to."

"Yeah. I need to get a cartridge for the paintball gun. They stayed away for a while after I shot that one."

"You'd think the neighbors would know their killers are eating our chickens again. They always take the carcasses home. Which one did they eat?"

"One of the white ones, I guess. It's a pile of white feathers."

Here's the thing. Even if they didn't see their precious pets with our meaty fowl in their jaws, those neighbors drive by the exact same pile of feathers that we do. A wild predator is not going to grab a chicken, take it across the road, and rip into it in the open, where people pass by. It's going to drag that chicken into the nearby woods, out of sight. I suppose those neighbors might think our chicken looked depressed, and crossed the road to lay down and die of a broken heart, ejecting her feathers with her last exhalation. And that the white feathers on their land blew there in the wind.

I know its the country. But their dogs' right to roam kind of ends when they come onto our land and eat our chickens. Other dogs make the rounds and don't eat the chickens. It's not like we didn't offer a couple of sessions with Old Shocky to make their pooches averse to tasting fresh fowl flesh.

I can't imagine they would remain so silent if my sweet, sweet Juno took a bite out of their two horses every couple of months. If she did that, I would put Old Shocky around her sweet, sweet neck myself, so she would learn that horses are not snacks.

What I need is a male German Shephard pup. One to raise with the chickens as part of his pack. One who will take the guarding of his territory seriously. We've been one dog down for over a year now. I declare that next summer is the time to enlarge our canine family. I will start working on Hick now. By then, he'll be ready to give in.

Or he'll be a pretty good shot with a paintball gun.

8 comments:

  1. I can't wait to see pictures when you acquire your new puppy/guard dog.

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  2. How is The Pony with a slingshot? Could the dogs be "captured" and turned into the pound? Could Hick slip them into his barbershop, and they can be his mascots/living fur rugs?

    Just some suggestions...

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  3. It's like the old west. "This here is chicken country...ain't no room for boxers."

    Not very neighborly at all.

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  4. Choose a paintball color that shows up real good on boxer hide and load up that gun with plenty of ammo.

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  5. Stephen,
    I wanted one this summer, but with my unfortunate hospitalization and convalescence, I am still wanting.

    *****
    Sioux,
    The Pony HAS a slingshot! His older brother, The Veteran, gave it to him for Christmas one year. It's not a simple forked stick with a rubberband. It's a freakin' stainless steel weapon! I would not subject even the chicken-eaters to that deadly implement.

    Nobody is going to come outside the city limits and pick up these dogs for the pound. I don't want them spirited away. I just want them to stay off the chickens. A little jolt could solve the problem.

    I don't think there's room in Hick's barbershop. That one dog is a full-figured gal. She would be a lumpy area rug, not a simple throw rug.

    *****
    joeh,
    This here homestead IS chicken country. There's room for boxers IF they wear muzzles. We don't cotton to hosting uninvited killers in these here parts.

    Hick is actually quite reasonable. Somebody shot the other neighbor's dog, and laid it at the end of his driveway. We don't know what it did, or who dispatched it. It used to run kind of wild and jump up on people. It knocked both my boys down at one time or other when they were younger, playing in the yard. It was still a (BIG) pup then, and would run home if you clapped your hands and told it to GIT! That's how we say it here. GIT!

    Then there are those who set out a bowl of tasty antifreeze as refreshments. Not neighborly at all, but folks take a risk, letting their unruly animals run roughshod over the enclave.

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  6. Leenie,
    Purple really stands out on that light brown hide. At least it did last time. Hick still has plenty of paintballs, since Genius has gone off to college and no longer hosts paintball wars. All he needs is a CO2 cartridge to power it.

    Let the record show that Hick went right over to the neighbors and told them exactly why their pet was sporting a purple splotch. The raids stopped for quite some time, though whether it was due to the dog's memory or an intervention by the neighbor. Don't care about the reason. Problem was solved for a while. Now it's BAAAACK.

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  7. I couldn't help but fix on that turducken dog. Could she, perhaps, be a turpuppen? Ready to birth some baby Boxberneeses? (Or is that "Boxberneesi?" Sounds like they are fortifying their army. Maybe you need a Mastiff or two.

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  8. Tammy,
    I don't think think we'll be hearing the pitter-patter of little Boxberneesi paws. The boobage of that behemoth looked the same as the that of the boy boxers. No Mastiffs for me. German shepherd is as big as I want to go.

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