But She Likes It!

Disclaimer: Posted with Zoe and Jay's approval.

Speaking of fathers and daughters, when we first welcomed Zoe, a Bichon Frise mix, into our home, she was two years old and weighed nine pounds. 

She hadn't lived with us long before her girth slowly increased. Caleb, our Korean Jindo, regulates his own weight (he'll stop eating if he gains a few pounds), so this was new to me.

I carefully monitored Zoe's food intake and made sure we exercised her regularly with long, brisk walks. (And by "we" I mean "Jay," of course. Hey, walking is good for him!) 

Yet, she still did not lose weight...

She gradually grew chubbier until she eventually weighed almost twenty pounds!
 

To: Resembles a beached manatee

From: Wouldn't hurt to gain a couple pounds

Actually, a baby manatee may have been smaller than Zoe
(photo credit: http://ambergriscaye.com/photogallery/121005.html)

I fed the dogs when Jay was at the fire station, but on the nights he was home, he insisted on serving their dinner so he "could bond with them." One night, I realized that he had been giving Zoe half as much food as he gave Caleb. 

Me:  Jay, she shouldn't get that much food!

He (shrugging):  I couldn't remember the exact amount to give her.

Me (logically):  Honey, Caleb is forty pounds. If she eats half of his portion size, then she'll be twenty pounds. She should be ten pounds, so you have to feed her less.

He (illogically):  But she likes it.

Me:  Jay! We have to make decisions based on her health. We're the parents.

I marked a measuring cup and put it in the dog food bag. Jay claimed he was adhering to the guideline.

Yet, she still did not lose weight... 

Matthew 10:26 says that "there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known," so it was only a matter of time before I noticed that Zoe always followed Jay with unusual enthusiasm when he went in the kitchen "to get a drink" before bed. The next time they went, I hazarded a guess.

Me (calling out, suspiciously):  Jay, what is Zoe eating? 

He (after a long pause):  You can hear that?

Me (suspicions confirmed!):  What did you give her?

He (after a longer pause):  Just some butter.

Me:  Butter! Jay, you can't feed her butter. No wonder she's so chubby.  

He:  But she really wanted some. She even sat up.

Me:  I don't care if she puts on Highland Tartan and dances a jig; don't give her butter.

He:  But she likes it.  

Me:  No more butter!
 
I thought that would solve the problem, and, when questioned, he assured me that he'd stopped feeding her butter. 

Yet, she still did not lose weight...

A few months later, I saw what looked like white paint on Zoe's ear and chin.

Me (puzzled): Jay, are you touching up the paint somewhere in the house?

He:  No. Why?

Me:  It looks like Zoe has white paint on her face.

He (after a long, long pause):  It's probably sour cream.

Me:  Did you say sour cream?

He (lamely):  I thought it might be getting old, so I mixed a little with her food.

Me (with my left eyebrow raised):  Yeah. And how much of this "old" sour cream did you give her?

He (vaguely):  Not much. Whatever was left.

Me (with both eyebrows raised):  Yeah. And exactly how much was that? 

He:  Only like a third of the container.

Me:  A third of the container? Did you say a third of the container?

He (reluctantly):  Well, it probably wasn't the best thing to give her.

Me (looking at the dietary info):  Not the best thing? Since this little dog just consumed about 300 calories and 25 fat grams, I would wholeheartedly agree. And all this time you had 'no idea' why she was so overweight?

He (stubbornly):  But she likes it.

This, my friends, is why God did not give Jay daughters.
 

A sour cream-smeared Zoe winking (literally) at her Partner-in-Crime

Verse of the day:  (Proverbs 22:9) “A generous man will be blessed, for he shares his food with those in need." 

For those ready to call Pet Protective Services:  Thanks to my daily monitoring of Papa Pushover, Zoe might still be a bit chubby, but at least she no longer looks like a miniature fuzzy hippo.

Medicated Part Two

This post will make more sense if you read last week's post first. It's ingeniously titled Medicated Part One to distinguish it from this one, Medicated Part Two.

Then we get to the worst part of the day. I was feeling better in the afternoon after a long, damp nap (reference is from last week's post) when I heard sirens in the distance. Why is that important, you ask? Let's back up a bit.

The nice thing about Korean Jindo dogs is that they don't bark much. Caleb would bark to alert me when a person came on our property, but he wouldn't bark at birds, squirrels, or paper bags flying in the wind. Which was good, generally speaking. 

My problem was that on the few occasions he did bark, he only barked when outside. I wanted him to bark when he was inside and someone came to the door (especially while Jay was at the fire station for a 24-hour shift and I was home alone). Caleb's fierce, white-wolf looks didn’t intimidate strangers when he was silently peeking from around the corner. 

Our vet told us we'd done an amazing job with Caleb's rehab so far (a neighbor rescued him and gave him to us several months earlier), but advised us to continue to build his confidence until he felt secure enough to bark while in the house. The vet was an older man with a heavy European accent, and since I'm illogically convinced that a heavy European accent guarantees expertise, I raptly listened.  

While looking for ways to boost Caleb's confidence, I noticed that when he was outside, he howled happily, tail wagging, when he heard firetruck sirens.

 

A light bulb went on (bing!). I figured that if I could encourage him to howl indoors, then he would eventually feel secure enough to bark indoors as well. Brilliant!

So, the next time Caleb was inside and I heard sirens, I cleverly said, "Howl," and gave him a demonstration. He looked perplexed that I was howling in the house, but eventually joined me by making some faint, strange noises, with his forehead puckered. He was possibly asking if I was losing my mind, but I praised his vocal efforts with an enthusiastic, "Good howl!"

When Jay came home from work the next morning, we heard sirens again (no, we don't have an arsonist on our street; we live a couple of miles from the fire station.), so I commanded, "Howl," and we both howled for Caleb. After a few minutes of our idiotic indoor bawling, he finally joined us with a response that sounded like a dying moose.

Most likely it was doggy laughter.  

But I exclaimed, "Good howl!" to encourage him.

 

Back to the worst part of my day...I was feeling better in the afternoon after a long, damp nap (reference is from last week's post) when I heard sirens in the distance. Caleb was outside, and I knew he'd howl when they came closer. Excitedly, I shouted for Jay, who was in the kitchen, to rush outside and join him. 

Jay obligingly ambled out the side door. He's very good to me.

Thinking, I, too, could help, I climbed out of bed and went out on the back deck. I couldn't see Jay, who was around the corner of the house, but when I couldn't hear him, I had an annoying suspicion that he was humoring me by standing there whispering, "Howl. Howl. Ah-rooo. Ah-rooo," under his breath. 

The sirens were lessening, but I smugly decided that I, at least, was dedicated enough to our pup's rehab to continue the exercise. 

I leaned over the deck railing in my powder blue, snowflake pajamas and howled. 

To my joy, Caleb raced from the side of the house, barking! I proudly assumed that he was responding to my feral vocalization, so, although the sirens were long gone, I threw back my head and howled again. 

Nice and long and loud. 

It was a spectacular howl!

As I slowly lowered my head at the end of my award-worthy canine call, I noticed that Caleb had kept running because he was actually barking at the neighbor who lives behind us; she was next to our back fence, partially concealed by the bush she'd been clipping, staring at me in open-mouthed shock. 

She abruptly put her head down and scurried away. 

We don’t know her well, so I desperately wanted to yell to her rapidly retreating back, "I'M MEDICATED. HEAVILY!" 

Verse of the day:  (2 Corinthians 15:13-14) "If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit. Either way, Christ's love controls us."

Zoe pretending she wants a howling lesson (I wasn't going to lean over the railing this time).

She didn't let out a sound, so I began to suspect she was just egging me on.

Confirmation of the set-up complete when she burst out laughing.
"Humans! Ha! They're so gullible."

Follow up:  I stopped taking that prescription (to the great relief of my husband and several neighbors). So I can no longer use medication as an excuse for my behavior.

I miss that.

Daylight Nightlight

I've never been a fan of birds, but since Jay had to have backyard chickens, I agreed under three conditions:

1. We'd eat their eggs, not them,
2. I wouldn't have to clean a stinky cage, and
3. that they'd get love and care like our other pets.

Jay built a coop (an enclosed house with roosts for sleep and nests for eggs) on wheels with an attached run called a chicken tractor.
 

The coop (with the wee doorway) is in the back and the run (with the gate) is in the front.
It's not pretty, but we were advised to make our first chicken tractor from scrap.

It doesn't have a floor so the chickens can walk on the lawn, eat weeds and bugs, dig for worms, and "fertilize" the yard. We move the coop to a new spot every other day, and there is nothing to clean because the droppings dry and crumble into the grass. 
 

Caleb watching over "his" biddies

Since the chicken tractor is on wheels, it isn't flush to the ground (like a normal hen house). It's built with warped wood so there are gaps between boards in the coop. When the cold weather began a few months ago, I worried that our chickies would be chilled by icy drafts blowing up their tail feathers while they were trying to sleep.

I suggested we buy our hens little capes for warmth (I'm not crazy. They sell them on Etsy. OK, it's a little crazy that I know that.). But Jay had a rather hostile reaction to the idea. It might have something to do with the fact that Zoe, our Bichon-mix, has accumulated at least nine coats of varying warmth (three of which are shown below), as well as several sweaters. At least she, unlike our poor chickens, was well prepared for inclement weather.

"But, honey," I coaxed, "it would help you tell the biddies apart. I could get a white cape for Blanche, a yellow one for Goldie, a pink one for Rose, and a green one for Henrietta! Of course, they'd need two capes apiece: one to wear and one to launder. And waterproof capes for rainy days and fleece-lined capes for snow..."

Jay was not buying it (or capes). Instead, he lined the coop with cardboard to stop drafts and add insulation. I countered by putting a thermostat inside the coop (it's hard to foil me when I'm on a mission) and found it was still only a few degrees warmer than outside. 

After I woke him several times on cold nights fretting about our girls' comfort, he finally hooked up a heat light to pacify me. We attached it to an outdoor thermostat outlet that turned the bulb on when the temperature dropped to 35 degrees F. 

Coop interior--cardboard over gaps & heat lights by the roost.
(That's Miss Blanche's backside in the doorway.)

Rookies that we are, we used a regular white light bulb instead of a red one (that registers as "night" in coops and submarines). Since chickens habitually enter their coop at dusk and leave it at first dawn, they were incredibly shocked when "sunlight" suddenly flooded the interior of their house around midnight. In a flutter, they raced outside only to discover, in cackling confusion, that it was still night.

Caleb, my service dog, was frantic when he sensed that "his" hens were distressed. Zoe (who was in pajamas) determined there was no food involved in the situation, so she turned her back to us.

Jay was at work (of course), so I had to put on my coat and boots and trudge out in a sleet storm to open the coop door so Caleb could see for himself that his fowls were flustered but fine. Shivering, I calmed the hens down enough to roost, and Caleb reluctantly followed me back into the house.

I toweled the icy rain off of my hair and crawled back in bed. Did I get any sleep?

Of course not.

Every half an hour, the hens looked to see if the sun was shining outside as well as inside. How do I know this? Because they'd argue over whose turn it was to check.

Their squabbling was loud enough to wake Caleb. 

And Caleb would wake me. 

The only thing I could see in the dark yard was the square cutout coop door glowing from the heat light inside the coop. I'd see a silhouette of one of the hens fly down into the doorway. She'd look left, look right, look up, and then she'd fly back to the perch to vociferously discuss her findings with the others: 

"It's still night outside."

"But it's day inside!"

"I know! But it's night outside!"

"But it's day inside. How can it be night outside?"     

"I don't know. But it is night outside."

"But it's day inside!"

"I know! But it's night outside."

Finally, they'd argue themselves into a light slumber. Caleb would settle down, and I'd crawl back in bed. But in a half an hour, one of them would wake up and rouse the others, which would wake Caleb, and he'd whimper and whine (ignoring my "They're fine. Go to sleep") until I'd get up. I'd go to the window and hear the chicken version of:

"It's light. We go outside when it's light."

"But it was night outside." 

"How can it be day inside and night outside?"

"I don't know, but it was."

"Go check again."

"You go check."

"The early bird gets the worm.'"

"You can have the worm. I'm not budging until I know it's day. Besides, it's Rose's turn to check."

"But I don't want to. You go, Blanche."

"I checked the first time! Henrietta can check." 

"It has to be day. It's light inside."

"Fine. I'll go."

I'd see the silhouette of the next hen poking her head out the doorway, looking left, looking right, then looking up. She'd fly back on the roost, and then I'd hear their strident squawking of "It's still night outside!" "But it's day inside!"  

All. 

Night. 

Long. 

I called Jay in the morning before he left work to tell him that the only way he'd get in the house was if he was carrying a red heat bulb.

I said, "The white light kept your chickens up. The chickens kept Caleb up. Caleb kept me up. But you'll be happy to hear Zoe snored blissfully through the whole thing."

 Louie Belle the cat is now my favorite pet.

Verse of the day: (Psalm 139:12) "To You the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to You." 

For another chicken story, see "Hidden Hen Hazards."