#62 / 2005 Tour 3: Barnyard Revenge

BARNYARD REVENGE

#62


We stayed at Tom’s for quite a few days catching up with Albuquerque friends and getting the van back in order. It was good to see Ralphie the dog again and he did seem to genuinely recognize me and be glad to see both Joe and I.

Ralphie is a beautiful dog with a white coat full of tan spots with a coral-colored nose. When I first saw him he had some very rough and raw spots around his neck. Tom said the chickens had pecked Ralphie. It started out with the roosters Big Red and his offspring Little Red. But it came to be such a sport down at the henhouse that the females started pecking on Ralphie too.

Tom had spent almost three hundred dollars at the vet having Ralph’s wounds attended to as they had required antibiotics and a lot of treatment. By the time we got to know Ralphie on our first visit the barnyard had reached an impasse. Ralphie wasn’t being pecked on any more, I guess he grew large enough to offset the roosters’ interest, but Ralphie still cowered a bit when the chickens came around.

So on our return the first thing I noticed was that the dog’s neck had healed. Big Red and Little Red still announced the morning and things seemed to be peaceful enough. As a matter of fact love was beginning to blossom for Ralphie.

Apparently one of Tom’s neighbors left the neighborhood and abandoned an unusual looking dog. Tom thinks the dog was abused a bit, so having a soft heart, he has allowed the dog to crawl under the gate to come over and play with Ralphie. They have been romping around together and building the sexual tension between them.

Coyote girl as the female has been dubbed is a very strange looking dog. She is a dull, grayish brown color and looks a little like those old pictures I have seen of Tasmanian Devil dogs with these weird ringed stripes - tiger style- making a sharp contrast to Ralph’s spots.

We had plans to go to a film festival down on the UNM campus last night so Joe and I left early and Tom spent his day inside the house working on correspondence. When we congregated by the campus before the play he told us all about the barnyard tragedy.

Near sunset Tom went outside to attend to something and noticed the lack of chickens in the yard. Over in the distance by his workshop his saw a pile of feathers. And there sadly was Big Red dead in a heap of his brightly colored feathers. Further inspection found Little Red slaughtered down at the hen house.

Tom took it pretty hard. He grabbed the dead body of Little Red and chased down Ralphie and Coyote Girl.  He bashed them on their heads with the hapless chicken’s carcass. Ralphie slunk away and I supposed Coyote Girl ran off.

Tom was attached to Big Red and gave him a proper burial. He said the big rooster must have sired at least fifty chickens around the South Valley. Little Red just wound up in the trash heap, a less glorious sendoff. I don’t even know how I will relate to Ralphie now, the next time I see him with new eyes, he’s Ralphie the chicken killer now.

But when we get up, without the benefit of crowing roosters, and meet up with Tom in the kitchen the next morning, Ralphie is nowhere to be found. I guess it was being beaten upon his head with that bloody chicken carcass that did it.

As of this report Ralphie is now roaming the South Valley with that mongrel female, both chicken killers now, and all the neighboring fowl had better beware.