JoJo & LaLa Assaulted

For all I have said about the mean geese on our farm, and JoJo and LaLa can be quite mean, I do not wish them bodily harm. When three of the Great Pyrenees puppies, now close to eight months old, had the opportunity to run as a pack this morning, both JoJo and LaLa became targets of a grand, tail-wagging chase. Working uphill from the scene, all I could see was that the pups were entranced, and uninterested in joining me, or their littermates, or their charges above the gate. Since they are now well contained by fencing and since I heard no chickens squawking in distress, I let them be. Once I heard LaLa cry out, I jogged downhill, chasing the pups away from the bird who was maintaining a posture of rigid stillness in her own self-defense. I found LaLa remaining motionless despite the pup pulling hard on one of her orange goose legs. The pups scattered and allowed me to shepherd them uphill, whereupon they found themselves restricted to the concrete kennel for the afternoon.

On my return to the front pasture area, I determined that only LaLa's pride had been damaged but that JoJo was nowhere to be seen. I set about calling for him, searching through the wooded patch and beyond where I had noticed the puppies romping earlier. The goose turned up down by the creek, looking quite bedraggled. Someone had obviously been tugging on his left wing, which for the most part was hanging sloppily beside the usually well-kept goose. I could see a bit of blood on his back where the skin was exposed by his drooping wing, but he still felt quite well enough to evade my attempts to catch him for an examination. Finally I simply herded him into the front area sectioned off with round pen panels where Millie and Stella had been recently corralled. I left the gate ajar so that LaLa might join him with ease, and told JoJo that he would be safe from further harassment in this enclosure.

Time would reveal how critical his injuries might be--they were not critical as it turned out. In the interim, I felt totally deflated for having allowed the assault to take place. Generally the pups chase the chickens but don't lay a tooth or a paw on the animals, but now that one has tasted a bit of goose I will have to remain vigilant in the birds' defense in the future.