The Molly Chronicles

Hi,
It's me, Molly, back again. So I'm learning more about the Australian shepherd side of my family. And remember I told you about Sadie, the Aussie that started - well - read the previous post. It'll tell you who Sadie was.
Cisco was Sadie's son, and, I'm ashamed to say it, was a chicken rustler and a garbage scrounger, but it wasn't his fault. If humans leave garbage at dog nose level, well, what do they expect of us? We're only canine. And besides, back in Cisco's day when the West was wild, all the garbage went for pig slop. Now I ask you, who's more deserving - a noble dog or a blubbery pig?????

Cisco

And as for the chicken incident, chickens are dumb and they're all peck, plock, cluck, flutter, peck, cluck.
So one day, this hen, Jessie, got out into the carrot patch and was scratching and cluck-plocking.

Well, Cisco ran at the carrot patch with his hackles on chicken alert, just snarling and growling ready to give her what for.

That's when his female human noticed the activity, and instead of praising Cisco for his courage, started calling and yelling and stomping her feet. But for some reason Cisco got a temporary attack of deafness just then, and instead of coming to his human, he gruff-ruffed right at the stupid chicken. (All chickens are stupid.) And he took a bite out of the chicken, and, by the time the human got there, the stupid chicken was lying all soggy and not moving - not so much as a twitch or a flutter. And Cisco was trying to paw the feathers out of his mouth.

Well Cisco's person was furious. We dogs don't understand ALL the words, (Except that border collies and Aussies understand more than most.) but we can understand screaming and hand waving all over the place. By the way, we also understand "shit, shit, shit".

Back in those days, a dog that kills chickens is a dead dog walking, so poor Cisco was dragged back to the farmhouse and tied up to a hitching post for horses. Naturally, Cisco got to chewing on the rope, but, before he could free himself, his human muzzled him with a fat old belt.

That night, the male human came in from the fields and got out his shotgun, and dragged ol' Cisco by the rope to a spot behind the chicken coop.

He really wasn't a bad human. it's just that back then killing chickens was a criminal offense punishable by getting shot.

So this human sat down next to Cisco and scratched his ears and his chest 'cause he really loved Cisco in spit of his failings. But the human knew what he had to do. He picked up the shotgun and took aim and - wouldn't you know it - there was Jessie just a a struttin' and a cluckin' and not dead at all. And acting like she was a smart dog instead of a dumb chicken.


                                                        Jessie - the dumb chicken

So they stuffed a bunch of chicken feathers, and mud, and straw, and more feathers into an old flour sack and tied the sack around Cisco's neck, and Cisco had to drag that old sack around for a week.

After that he left the chickens alone.

But he still got into the garbage once in a while.