Chickens Attacked by Dog

I was at work the other day when I got a call from Steve to tell me that one of the chickens had been injured. At the time he called he had no idea what had happened but as time went on the story unfolded.

A friend had been visiting and as he left Steve reminded him to be careful as the chickens were out. He soon returned to say that there were feathers everywhere and a chicken was in the road. Steve thought that it had wandered into the road and been hit by a car but on further inspection this was not the case. The trail of feathers made him realise that she had been grabbed and taken by at this stage an unknown animal. He looked down the road and saw a woman with two horses and two loose dogs and suspected he had identified the culprit.

The chicken had obviously been shaken and had lost a lot of feathers including all the tail feathers and most flight feathers especially from its left wing, she had also sustained an injury to her right leg/foot. Steve gently examined her and there were no sign of blood or puncture wounds so although she was shaking and shocked he felt that if she survived the night she might live. A while later the woman who Steve had seen riding away with dogs knocked on the door and confessed that the culprit was indeed one of her dogs. It transpired that the dog had spotted our chickens in our garden and had gone up our drive and attacked them managing to catch one. She said that she only realised that the dog had gone when she saw it with the chicken in its mouth, she yelled at the dog to drop the chicken which it did. She offered to replace the chicken and a couple of days later left us a note saying that she had been told that our chickens would not accept a new chicken and left a bottle of wine instead! I do not wish to seem ungrateful but.......

A few days later Steve met one of the local farmers who asked about the chicken - he had seen the whole sorry episode.

Call me cynical but I wonder if this woman would have returned had she not been seen and I question why did she not stop and tell us at the time of the event rather than leave an injured animal in the road. Why did she not have her dogs under control? her excuse was that the dog that attacked the chicken was only nine months old, why was it not on a lead? How did she possibly think that she could control two horses and two dogs (without leads) along country lanes and cross the main A30!

Many people may think that it was 'only a chicken' but that chicken was injured and very distressed and should not have just been left. We also rely on our four chickens for eggs - not unsurprisingly she has not laid since the incident thus reducing our egg supply by 25% - a bottle of wine is no compensation for the chicken! or our lost production.
It should also be noted that the sheep are now lambing and are also suseptable to dog attacks.

Finally we are not anti dogs, indeed we have one of our own, but are are against irresponsible dog owners who should know better.