Today was a day that especially our hens will probably never forget. They were calmly picking rice corns in our garden and garage when suddenly the neighbours’ husky escaped from their garage and bolted into ours. The moment we noticed him, we ran outside, but he had already caught Gertrud and was trying to bite her. Luckily, the owner also had noticed the disappearance of his dog and ran into our garage to fetch him. While mom tried to grab Gertrud, the dog’s owner managed to open his jaws, and we could free Gertrud at last. All had happened within just a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity.
Mom thoroughly checked Gertrud, and it seemed that the dog luckily had only held her in his mouth and not really bitten her, as she had only lost many feathers and showed a few small bruises, but nothing serious. But the worst wound was probably not physical but psychical. She was in a deep state of terror.
We put her in her house, on her nest, where we thought she would probably feel the safest and looked after her every few minutes. Dad even baked crêpes for the two birds, as they had liked them very much when they were allowed to taste from ours last time.
Elfriede had been more lucky and clever during the whole event. The moment the dog bolted into our garage, she darted outside and hid in the shrubs next to our gate, playing dead. So, the dog didn’t even notice that there had been a second chicken, and she was pretty unaffected by his attack and was just a bit scared.
In the afternoon, Gertrud already seemed quite back to normal, luckily, and the neighbour and his wife even came asking about her and immediately fixed the garage door so that the dog wouldn’t be able to escape another time.
