jmgoyder

I hesitate to speak too soon, but it looks like my patience has paid off and familiarity has bred harmony rather than contempt when it comes to interactions between our dogs and our birds.

This morning we let the dogs out of their yard and kept the gang in theirs (we usually do the opposite). I sat outside and kept watch because even though the geese, ducks and emus were safely in their own yards, all of the other birds were out and about because they can fly. So the peafowl, guinnea fowl, turkeys, chooks and pheasant, were all roaming around freely and seemingly unafraid of the dogs who they usually only see through a fence. I was particularly worried about the chooks but so far so good and I’ve been able to come inside.

Here is Jack, the Irish Terrier, with the Bubbles and Baby Turkey. Now Jack, who is less than a year old, has never exhibited any ferocious hunting tendencies anyway, but he does like to chase things. In this sense, he and Baby Turkey have a lot in common so you could say they have both met their match and the chasing has stopped.

Interestingly, Doc and Blaze (our father and son miniature dachschunds) are so busy fighting each other at the moment that neither has attempted to hunt down any of the birds. I’m not sure what is going on with those two but lately they never stop arguing and last night Doc gave Blaze a nasty bite on the ear when Son was feeding them. Doc is very jealous when it comes to our attention so poor Blaze has to constantly defer to his father and stand back.

Another harmony challenge has been the introduction of a new gander to the gang. He was delivered to us by a neighbour the other day because he had lost his mate and was very lonely. The poor guy is quite scared of Godfrey’s gang and yesterday, when Son and I got back from Perth, we found him all alone by the gate and had to ‘herd’ him back to the gang and put them all in the same pen. We are calling him Leroy and hoping that with enough time in the yard with the others, he will eventually make a friend and be okay. Son says it reminds him of being ‘the new kid’ at school. The following photo is not a good one but it does show this new kid’s challenge. Leroy is on the right, Seli is on the left and Godfrey is in the background (as always!) Sometimes redeye isn’t a bad effect!

In a couple of hours I pick Husband up for the weekend so I better go and hose down the area outside the back door which all our birds seem to think is the toilet – arghh!