December 10, 2012
The other day our neighbor’s dog killed one of our chickens. The old hen was not laying and probably should have been culled, but I would have preferred to have it done more humanely. I guess it is death, no matter the cause, but I am thinking that the “PETA” folks should take notice.
When I butcher an animal, it has been treated with kindness and respect right up to the last-minute. I stun the animal quickly and bleed it out. The event takes a mere spilt second. I am not cruel in any part of that animal’s life or death.
Now, let’s see what happens in nature; dogs having morphed from wolves, still have a killing instinct. I truly believe that some of them kill..then wonder what came over them?! It is no less traumatic for the chicken though…weather the dog meant to or not.
How about deer, overcrowded in some urban areas. They are starving, surviving by eating landscape plants and anything they can reach. I have seen the damage to flora and fauna, from starving deer. Endangered woodland plants destroyed because a few loud mouth, well-meaning people, prevent the deer herd from being managed by hunters.
So, think about it…. a well placed shot or arrow dispatches an animal. Can anyone really think that this method is more traumatic than the slow painful death of starvation? How about that old hen, her dying breath, squeezed out of her, in the jaws of a playful dog. Her entrails ripped from her rear end while she tried to get away from “Fido”… makes me sad in both cases.
Animal husbandry is an art. I bear as much blame as the dog. I was the one who let the old hens free range our barnyard. I thought they would be safe outside of their fence. They could run a new area. They could find bugs, grasses and bits of grain, much to their delight as they played in a new place. I didn’t expect the harmful intruder…. So dogs being dogs, and scared worried hens racing around the yard, led to the unexpected.
I took the playful dog home ….. this time.
RicelandMeadows 
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