Chicken run

Why did the chicken cross the road, race across the meadow, run into the bushes, and finally dash up the creek?

To get away from the Hopeful hound, of course. A more interesting question, though, is what the chicken was doing in the road to begin with.

It started with a box. Hopeful and I were out on a walk yesterday morning when we encountered a broken cardboard box in the middle of the road, just where a box with a few feathers in the bottom ought not to be. That's odd, I thought, but I shoved it over to the shoulder and walked on.

We crossed the county road bridge and started up the hill, a quiet quarter-mile stretch of road with no houses or other buildings in sight--but the quiet was shattered by the squawking of a chicken that came running out of the bushes, crossed the road, and dashed down into the meadow toward the creek, with Hopeful in close pursuit. I tried to make her stop, but nothing I can say to my dog is nearly as interesting as a chicken fleeing into the bushes.

The squawking stopped and Hopeful immediately returned to my side, a few white feathers sticking out of the side of her mouth. I saw no other sign of the chicken.

Well, that's over, I thought--until another chicken burst out of the bushes just ahead and went running down toward the same meadow. This time I managed to keep Hopeful by my side. She seemed a little annoyed by the feathers stuck in her mouth, but I wasn't about to help her extract them.

As we walked on up the hill, I wondered whether I ought to do something about the chickens. A few of our neighbors keep chickens, but these didn't look like lowly laying hens. They looked like show chickens, like some child's precious 4-H project--certainly not the sort of chicken you expect to see wandering along country roads. I wondered whether I ought to conduct a daring chicken rescue.

But how? I'm just strong enough right now to walk up the big horrible hill, but running cross-country after swiftly-moving chickens isn't my area of expertise. Do I have what it takes to chase chickens through the bracken?

And suppose I caught them--then what? How would I carry two big angry chickens a half mile back to the house with Hopeful's help?

And then where would I put them to keep them safe while seeking their owner? Suppose I managed to stash two panicky chickens in the garage: when my husband came back from the Farmers' Market and stopped to unload his gear into the garage, the chickens would come bursting out at him, making their escape to freedom much like those chickens following Mel Gibson in the movie Chicken Run.

I would have to put a sign on the garage door: "Beware of Chickens." It would almost be worth the effort just to see my husband's face.

But first I would have to catch the chickens, and that would mean making sure Hopeful didn't catch them first. The dog stayed near my side until I turned around and started coming back down the hill, and then she dashed off ahead toward the place where we had last seen the second chicken. I called and whistled and brandished a doggy treat, but nothing I could do would deter her from pursuing that second chicken.

By the time I caught up with her, the chicken was up to its knees (do chickens have knees?) in the creek, dashing frantically upstream with Hopeful in close pursuit. I called and whistled to no avail. Dog and chicken squawked, barked, and splashed right out of my sight.

I turned for home. Hopeful followed about 20 minutes later. I interrogated her about the chickens, but her lips were sealed, with not a feather in evidence. Do I really want to know what happened to the chickens, or would I prefer ignorance?

Am I my chicken's keeper?

Or when it comes to running after panicky poultry, am I just a little too chicken?