Orphan Chicks & King Jethro the Wicked

On a warm summers evening a few years ago in Corpus Christi, Texas, I was out walking Jethro the Wonder Dog in the prarie-esque field behind my VTF. (His real, full name is Leroy Jethro Gibbs, but if you are reading this you already know that)
He was off leash because, I'm lazy, and also the field was huge and it was past duty hours and no one was around. Go Navy. 

My clinic in Corpus was just down the road from the base golf course, So there was quite a bit of open space on what was an otherwise very small installation. What you might not know, unless you've been to South Texas, is that there is an indigenous breed of hare that is rather large, called the black-tailed jackrabbit, and the open space on the Naval Station was home to many, many of these giant eared lagomorphs.

On this particular evening, there was a hare, going about his rabbit business, about 100 meters away. Once Jethro spotted this creature, he was off like he was shot out of a high-powered rifle. You would think he was a greyhound chasing Swifty around the track instead of a three-legged coonhound. Within mere seconds they both had disappeared over the hills and on to the golf course. Muttering profanities I got behind the wheel of my truck and drove to chase them down, which I did about eight minutes later and about 2 miles away. I may or may not have broken base speed limit/stop sign/driving off road regulations during the pursuit. 

I tell you this story just to let you know that although Jethro's breed was created for hunting, that's the only time in our four years together that he has gone after another creature. He co-habitated with my mom's cat very nicely and is the world's most chill dog.

Jethro hard at work

Until Guam

Now this particular island, like many countries across southeast Asia, has a semi-wild chicken population, and every couple of houses out here has a gaggle of chickens upon the yard. Gaggle? Troop? Clowder?
No, The correct answers are brood or clutch or peep. I finally understand why the little Marshmallow chickens are called peeps. Thank you Wikipedia. So glad I went through four years of vet school to look up the collective noun of animals on the web.

But I digress. Chickens, we got shit tons. Jethro, he loves to chase the chickens. Now as any fan of the Rocky movies knows --catching a chicken is not that easy to do. And I figure Jethro being handy capable and all, the chickens would be okay even if he did manage to get loose to go after them. 

Score one for Jethro, zero for dad. Couple of weeks ago while I was working in the yard, Jethro wandered off... soon after I heard some loud squawking and a very high-pitched cackle and I see Jethro bounding back to me across the yard with a bird in his mouth. Needless to say I was stunned. Jethro sat before me presenting his catch, a live, unharmed black hen held firmly in his mouth. He was so proud. My first problem came when I realized I had never taught Jethro an ‘out’ command. Didn't seem practical. The boy would never fetch a ball or Frisbee or a stick... he never brought me anything that I needed to tell him to let go of. He knew ‘leave it’ as a command to stop doing what he was doing. But that didn’t help in this case. About five minutes of struggling later, I freed the startled but intact chicken from the mouth of the hound. 

Crime Scene Photo

Now, we come to the drama of today's walk. While passing a parked Jeep, we met a family of chickens, the rooster, mottled black-and-white much the same coloration as Jethro,  the momma hen, all black with flecks of blue, and 2 chicks, one black & one white. They were older offspring and you can usually tell the age of the chick by how many are in the gaggle. Whereas a family group might start out with five or six little fuzzy guys, over time they become four or three or two or one. And unlike how Morgan Freeman lied in that penguin movie, they don't just fade away.

Upon seeing Jethro, and Jethro seeing them, the family scattered in a flash.  They hadn’t, however, worked out a rally point, because mom, dad and the white chick ran under the Jeep, and the black chick ran in the completely opposite direction across the street, eventually managing to find a little bush to hide under.  I'll admit I did have a pang of guilt about possibly creating an orphan chick scenario. (See above regarding predation.) It does kind of go against my oath, the animal suffering and all. 
A future... I figured that chick by himself didn't have one. But as we moved away, after a short time, the family got back together and reunited. 

But the real reason I tell this story is what happened in the intervening few minutes when they were separated....the mamma started yelling, loudly, staccato, shrieking, at that rooster. Cause it was his fault that the little guy ran the wrong way from ‘danger’, and she was giving the rooster the business.  I also imagined it was the same hen Jethro had gotten earlier, so

I pictured the conversation including lots of I TOLD YOU that dog is a killa!!

A real-life henpecked male.  Nature, gotta love it.