Hello and good morning! So I thought it would be a good idea to start a house and home update on Wednesdays to kind of keep all my posts more organized. Mondays will be designated for more reflective posts. Anyways here in the Venegas household I cant say anything is super exciting, until it is and then it gets crazy around here lol. One such event, my neighbors dog's interaction with our rooster. Love, love, love the dog, as do my kids. Unfortunately, this dog also loves roosters, in the sense that she thinks they are tasty. This has been a truly unfortunate experience. My neighbor is the kindest, most delightful person. She actually brought us chocolate chip cookies to welcome us to the neighborhood the first week we moved in! And her dogs are super well trained and she's had them for quite a few years. One of the dogs likes to come into our yard which is completely fine with me because as I said, well trained. But then my husband got show roosters. The expensive kind. They can go anywhere from $100-$600 just from what I've seen. And he loves them dearly.
My husband's favorite rooster, Canelo
The first two he bought from a friend and got a pretty good deal on. He put them in cages he found in our yard (bad idea). Apparently they weren't very strong and the next day he found the cages ripped apart and pieces of the roosters in our yard. Sorry for the gruesome details. Since he found the pieces going towards the neighbors fence, he immediately assumed it was her dog. I also had a feeling but told him that we couldn't really say that because we didn't see it. Although I had seen the dog bite off one ear of my pig Bella, at that time I didn't take it into too much consideration because the pigs ear was already injured. Just to be clear, the dog is not vicious and is extremely well behaved around humans, it's just not used to farm animals. I told my neighbor what happened with the roosters and she said if her dog did it she would pay for it, but also texted me later that it could have been coyotes. I dropped the subject because I mean who wants to fight with their neighbor? So fast forward a couple weeks and she had put an electric fence in her yard so that the dog wouldn't leave. But it was heart braking to see the dog like that and my neighbor talked about rehoming her which made me feel bad. But with the dog not coming into the yard, I was able to let my bantam chickens out and about in the yard. Then one fateful day, after I had let the animals out, my daughter said "hey look its the dog in our yard". I immediately said "oh shit!", and ran outside. But it was too late. She had gotten to my bantam rooster. The landscapers saw it. My neighbor felt horrible and was in tears. As was I, the bantams are two of my favorite pets. For me her being upset was enough, I didn't want to upset her more. My husband on the other hand was still mad about his previous roosters who had died. He said since someone had seen the dog get to this rooster it was obvious that the dog had gotten to our other roosters, especially since we hadn't had any problems since the dog hadn't been in our yard, and asked her to compensate us for them ... in the amount of $200! I did not want to ask my neighbor for $200. But my husband was adamant. She was shocked at the amount at first but said she didn't want to have any problems with us and paid us immediately. She also asked a friend of hers to get some bantam chickens for us. I feel horrible about the whole situation and hope this doesn't drive a wedge in our friendship. What would you have done?? Let me know your thoughts!
