Roots N Boots

So I have delayed writing this post for quite a while now, not even wanting to include it in my blog, but I really want this blog to be educational, mostly from our own personal successes and mistakes. So, here goes:

We adopted our dog, Dozer, last October. He was 5 months old at that point, and is my favorite breed: Border Collie. He did quite well over the winter, having lots of walks and playing brain games each evening, but then Spring came and we started getting busier, equaling less quality time for Dozer. So even though I have tried to give him as much time as possible, he has been going a little stir crazy lately, and starting to get destructive. He started off with chewing a pair of flip flops, and a hose, but then it got worse.

We brought our chickens to our new place in February, and I was so excited. I absolutely love our chickens (and geese and ducks), but never thought that the dog would also love them, in a different way. Sure, he was very excited when we brought them home, but rightfully so. Anyway, time goes on and then we have a mishap with a friends dog who was over at our house, and spur of a moment ran right up to the chicken coop, grabbed my favorite Wyandotte, and ran off. Dozer wanted to join in, but instead of grabbing a chicken, he chased a goose right across our hay field. Thankfully, the goose was not harmed, but quite scared and exhausted by the time we all calmed down and gently herded him back up the hill to the coop. A few days later, my husband and I were working in the back of our property, and Dozer was hanging out with us as, as usual, when he got bored and decided to go back up to the house. That was fine, until I went up there later to discover that he had killed our very old chicken. I was sad and slightly shocked, but I was grateful that she was not a productive egg layer. But, at that time, he had proved that he liked to chase critters, and the chickens were an easy target. My husband and I started discussing rehoming him, as we had already said that we can have free range chickens or a free range dog, but not both. The chickens have gained so much joy being able to roam freely versus their previous coop where they were locked up in a small run all day long. I decided to post an adoption ad for Dozer to see if he received any leads. I did get some interest, but not as much as I expected, and had some very nice people come out to look at him, but they all said they didn’t want to take him away from our property. I had been very cautious about letting him off leash when the birds were out, but a few weeks later, the wind blew one of our house doors open when we were out, and Dozer escaped and murdered over half of our chicken flock as well as one of our ducks. We were absolutely devastated to return to that crime scene, and he knew what he had done was wrong. Now I do believe that he did this out of boredom, and I don’t think he actually knew what he was doing, especially since he didn’t try to eat them, and only one had blood on her. But it was still wrong. We decided at that point that he had to go. It has been amazing having Dozer around, and I have learned so much about him, and about living with a dog again, but I have also realized that my husband and I both prefer the peaceful, quiet animals. I have also learned that it takes more work than I have time for to teach a predator to cohabitate with prey.

I have found a new home for Dozer, one with a dog buddy for him to play with, and a lady who has a job where she can take the dogs with her each day. We will both greatly miss Dozer as we have grown quite attached to him, but I have faith and comfort that he is going to a great home, and I truly hope this is his forever home.