this cowboys wife

The dalmatian is loyal, happy, devoted, laidback, enthusiastic, impulsive, and clever. One of the best family dogs you could ever own, so long as you are able to keep their quick brain active.

They are an ancient breed, able to trace their roots back to 3700BC. That’s really old. like the beginning of the world old. Adam was created around 4000BC, he was like 300 years old when they started drawing spotted dogs. My point? there’s a lot of instinct there.

Often depicted running next to their master’s chariot, carriage, coach or wagon, it is probably what their known best for, however! They were also used as family guard dogs, cart pullers, shepherding, and are adept at hunting small vermin as well as pack hunting larger game such as stag and boar, leading the way ahead of the Tally Ho.

Oh, they’re also a bird dog. I was blissfully unaware of this.

Imagin my amusement at seeing my 8 week old pup scampering around my small acreage only to come to a full stop at the first sight of my poultry in their encloser and go into a point. The first time he did it, I thought it was by mistake and that he wasn’t doing it on purpose, a coincidence. But when he started pointing at every bird, including the European sparrows- the non-migratory kind that are unable to transport coconuts- my mistake began to dawn. I promptly yanked out my phone and type are Dalmatians hunting dogs only to have Goog all but yell, of course they are, you idiot. I do not know how this information illuded me the first one hundred and one times I researched their breed before picking out my puppy, not that it would have stopped me from getting a Dal, but maybe it would have kept from happening what happened next…

You see, my small insignificant flock- consisting of four non-laying hens, one bedraggled rooster, a large male goose, and, at the time, three renegade pullets – are housed away from our house and yard, on the other side of our private drive, in a too-large-for-them chicken coop and yard. The before mentioned renegades used to total six in number, but three of them were killed by skunks, and these last remaining three refuse to abide by our laws and can be seen, literally, flying the coop every morning. Why not just let them be free range chickens you ask? Because they come in the yard and dig up my flower beds and scatter beauty bark (do people still call it that?) all in the grass/weed mixture we call our lawn, and it’s very difficult to rake back into the beds because the rack gets tangled in the vine-y weeds and can’t make it over the ancient plastic garden edging that lays pel-mel in, through and around our so-called flower beds. So instead, we try to keep our ridiculous flock in their larger-than-my-first-house yard/coop combo. I digress.

So, the pullets fly the coop, and wander around looking for… I’m not sure what and eventually end up hopping the fence of our backyard. Where my newly discovered bird dog is waiting.

I would love to say that he was innocent. That he didn’t mean to be quite so rough with her. That he was just looking for someone to play with him. He’s only 14 weeks old after all! But when we pulled up after running some evening errands, there he was, riding poor Waffles around like a feathered bag, letting her go, only to pounce on her when she was almost out of reach. Good grief, dog. By the time we reached her, and hauled the wriggling miscreant off, she was too far gone for us to save, and since we are not the breed of humans that take hens to vets, the husband humanly and swiftly put her down.

R.I.P. Waffles

The last two remaining pullets have not tried breeching the yard since.

This concludes my PSA to do your duty when you are contemplating obtaining any animal by doing as much research as you can about them, but also remembering that things can still fall through the cracks, and you may end up with mangled pullets.