First of all, I’d like to sincerely thank all of you who have said such kind and supportive things to Mandi after yesterday’s post about Sweetie. I know she feels the love from all of you. And I mean ALL of you. Her post and the one about Brody getting hurt are the two most-read posts since I started this blog. Close behind came dead chickens. Hmm. I sense a theme.
So, here you go, something on both injured dogs AND dead chickens. Something for everybody, huh?
I guess you can tell from my tone that this isn’t all that horrible. Like Mandi said yesterday, when you live out in the country, you see life and death every day. I think it gets you a better perspective; we all are going to go sometime, for some reason, so let’s appreciate what we have now. Platitudes, maybe, but true.
Chickens can be funny
We did have another chicken loss this week. It was really hot, then really cold, and I guess if a chicken had to die of natural causes, the cold time is probably better. Poor little Ameracauna was just sitting on her nest. Sara thinks she was eggbound or had some other issue. At least nothing ate her, and it was peaceful. Poor dear.
I mentioned that the egg production had ramped up, but it had settled to four a day, which isn’t many for the number of chickens we had. As we were dealing with the dead chicken, Tyler, who lives in the cabin by the coop, came out. I said feel free to take a few eggs now, since we have enough for at least our community. He said, “Oh, I’ve been finding them in a weird place lately…oh my gosh!” He had turned to the shelves outside his door and found SEVEN eggs from a brown hen on the top shelf. Someone found a nice, warm roost. So, yesterday, everybody got some eggs!
Dogs can make you worried
Those of you who are my Facebook friends probably saw that we had some trouble with Brody yesterday. First, he smelled just awful. Second, he peed all over the house. In fact, while I was cleaning up some, he walked right up and peed in front of me!
I’m no fool so I figured he was trying to tell us something. So, we got in touch with the vet and asked her. She said the medication he is on could have him feeling weird, and that the smell was probably the infection leaving his body from all his wounds.
We made sure he had enough pain meds, and he stopped peeing. In fact, he has even been able to run around a bit and play with the other dogs, as long as they don’t hit a sore spot (of which there are many).
Update: Oh no, poor boy
He smelled less bad early today, and his eye looks like it is starting to heal.
But, just now I looked over and saw blood. There is another wound we didn’t know was there, and THAT is what was smelling, because it hadn’t been getting the antibiotic ointment! Lee has it all clean and medicated now, and we will be contacting the vet again to sere if he needs to go get stitches on that one. Poor guy.
And Harvey?
As for Harvey, the perpetrator, he has been very well behaved. He plays with Carlton and Vlassic quite appropriately, and has been very good about stopping his growling or barking when told to. He just whines a big, like, “Darn it, I want to bark, but I better not. I’m in trouble.”
My friend Lee Ann had mentioned making loud noises with paper towel rolls and the like, and that one is working real well for all of them. We use a magazine rolled up, too (those are always available). Carlton has almost stopped his habit of barking his butt off to try to get the other dogs to play. So, things seem to be settling down.
Next week, I’m still going to call the two trainers we’ve idenified as good prospects for Harvey, though. We want him to be a good member of the family. I know that there are dogs like him who just have to live in single-dog families, but I want to try all the other options before that heart-breaking option happens!
Thanks again for all your caring. It has been a hard week (and this is just the animal part of it!).
Weather report: rainy and in the 40s. Not a good horse riding day. No more freezing precipitation. I was going to write a post on that but well, stuff happens.
The Hermits' Rest 