Let me in!
That is Oso looking through the window screen wondering why Papi's favorite, Zoe, gets to stay inside while he's relegated to being a yard dog. Then he's joined by Joey, whose pitiful sad look works on me and inside they come.
The dogs generally stay outside during the day and come inside when Arexy leaves at four. They've learned to tell time and know when it is 4 pm even on days that Arexy doesn't work. Just in case I don't notice the time, they gang up and remind me.
Lately, El Jefe has frequently "accidentally" let Zoe inside during the day which gives her the idea that she is special and rightfully deserves the special treatment. At the first drop of rain, she cries like she is sure that she will just melt away if a single drop falls on her.
During the rainy season, all the dogs spend more time inside. Even Chloe, the guard dog, sometimes whines to come in although she has a huge covered terraza to keep her dry. Chloe really appreciates any time she gets inside the house. She just immediately finds her spot, puts up the "off-duty" sign, and goes to sleep. She's also taken over the chicken coop as her dog house. She shares it with the termites who are destroying all of El Jefe's hard work. :-/
At one point, the chicken coop was taken over by fire ants and the flock abandoned it for the railing on the terraza — not a good thing due to the mess they make. The rooster in the foreground is Pancho. He's still going strong as leader of the flock and you would never know from watching him that I snatched him from the jaws of death. He's almost indistinguishable from the other rooster, except for a missing spur and one of his long tail feathers which never grew back.
Generally it is best to only keep one rooster (because of fighting and increased crowing to each other), but I wanted to keep the other one because he was a white chick and I was hoping that we would get some more "blond" hens. It hasn't worked so far. The normal Red Jungle Fowl look seems to prevail with few variations. But the roosters get along most of the time since there are enough hens to go around. The photo is deceiving because there is a hen behind the second rooster and it looks like her head belongs to him. ;-) If you look closer, you'll see that his head is bent down.
I tried to get some photos of the hens but they would run away when I got too close. There are two chicks in these photos as well. For some better photos of these bantam hens, check out this article.
The hens are constantly disappearing somewhere to nest and reappear after about 6 weeks with their chicks. In the meantime, we get no eggs! I suspect that Chloe is finding the egg hiding spots before we are and is eating the eggs.
Chloe is about 8 years old now. She's a good dog except for her penchant for my eggs and a very good guard dog. She doesn't bother the chickens and mostly gets along well with the chihuahuas, though the boys have taken to growling at her sometimes when she comes into the house (their territory). She gets annoyed with that so I try to nip that in the bud. It's funny how chihuahuas don't see themselves as they are. They seem to imagine that they are Chloe's equal. Unfortunately, they have both found out the hard way that they aren't.
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