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* WARNING, THIS POST CONTAINS CONVERSATIONS ABOUT DEATH AND SHOOTING ANIMALS, (SPOILER ALLERT) *

Yesterday morning, Hubby and I were woken up by my neighbor banging on the door. I ran to the door, slowly opened it, and looked up at the concerned look on my neighbor’s face.

“There are dogs in your chicken coup.” He said calmly, pointing in the direction of the backyard.

“What?” I asked in disbelief. Clearly, I had heard him wrong! Dogs? IN our coup?

I followed him around the garage and into the back yard. To my horror, I seen two feral dogs inside my chicken cage..

They weren’t barking, they weren’t growling, and at first glance they looked like someone’s pet.. I ran to the chicken cage (only realizing afterwords just how seriously reckless that could have been) and threw open the door, yelling at the dogs to get out! The white dog instantly ran out and started circling the cage, while the black dog refused to get out!

Thankfully, the chickens were in the dog kennel. We hadn’t let them out for the morning, so they were unharmed, although we found out later that one of the Australorps had half of its tail feathers pulled out!

After trying to scare the dogs away, the black dog still refused to leave the cage! They neighbor had set off firecrackers in an attempt to scare the dogs off, but they weren’t budging… Annoyed, I ran back into the house to get hubby (who wasn’t aware yet of what was going on and was getting ready for the day).

Hubby immediately grabbed his gun and ran out the door, just as confused as I was when the neighbor had told me we had dogs in the chicken coup.

*Side Note: These ‘dogs‘ were NOT someone’s pets! They were half-breeds of half dog and half coyote or wolf, they were completely wild but not yet acting dangerous, and they were large. (A friend of mine said that they looked like miniature Twilight wolves, and now that’s all I can see..)

After a bunch of debate about what to do, as the dogs weren’t leaving, I called the local police station and told them we needed animal control out there. I was told, however, that animal control wouldn’t be in until 8 (it was 6:30am when I called) and that there was nothing they could do. They suggested we go inside to stay safe and leave the chickens to die.. You know, because we could always buy more chickens. 🤦‍♀️

With the local authorities being no help at all, we had no choice but to take care of it ourselves.

We finally got the black dog out of the coup, but both dogs were still running around our property. I went over to the chicken cage to survey the damage and hopefully calm the chickens down. There were holes ripped through the chicken wire in three different places, and EVERYTHING inside the cage was covered in fur! There was even a worn ring in the grass around the cage, which told us that they had been out there for a while surveying the area and deciding how best to get inside.

Sadly, we ended up having to take care of one of the dogs after it trapped me inside the chicken cage and wouldn’t let me out. I’m not for ending a life if I don’t have to, but these dogs were getting a little too close, and it was making us both uncomfortable. After ‘taking care of’ the white one, the black one stayed a little further away and made sure to keep the neighbors house behind him so that we couldn’t shoot him as he slowly circled the back half of the property before disappearing into the woods.

Around 8:30 (two hours after calling), the police showed up about the dogs.. They scanned the area for the black dog, they looked over the damage of the coup and the pictures we had taken, and then they left.. And it wasn’t even animal control that showed up, so what on earth took them so long to show up!? (Hubby has a feeling that someone called in and told them they heard some gunshots, and that’s why they showed up so ‘fast’.)

After we were sure the black dog was gone for the moment, we let the chickens out of the dog kennel and kept them close as we mended up the cage. I had run into town and grabbed some welded wire, which we put around the biggest holes, and then mended what I could with wire around the rest of the cage for a temporary fix. We cleaned all of the fur off everything, hosed down the kennel and water tank, and then put the chicken cage right up next to the house so that we could keep a close eye on them overnight.

We are very much on high alert now, checking in on the chickens every hour and walking around the property to make sure the dogs know that we are on high alert as well (if they happen to be watching with a larger pack). We are certain that they will return soon to finish the job, but for now, we are on high alert and keeping the gun close to us for when it returns.

So yeah, that was our eventful day yesterday! Great way to start the morning, right? 😅

As always my lovely readers, smile, have an amazing day, and stay safe out there!!!