In the heat of the lazy afternoon fowl-play was afoot as we heard the sudden beating of wings and then a HONK that sounded like a shreek and then then the crash of mad chasing under the house. I ran out and caught a glimpse of a dog pouncing on my poor goosie as it fought back valiantly with its wings and beak. As soon as the stray dog caught a whiff of me, it scarpered quick smart off the property. Goosie was left in a state with blood on his neck and a severe hurt look on his face; he refused to look at me in the eye and beat a hasty retreat towards the shade of the coconuts.
After all this pandemonium, we suddenly realised that the goosie’s duckie buddies (white duck and two brown girls) were missing.
Gnome heard distant quacking coming from the pond where the fowl go to swim during the day. We walked the 150 yards, in silence and fear, to the pond and noted a trail of goose feathers as we went along. When we finally got there, the dog was there drowning one of our poor ducks in the pond. As soon as the dog saw Gnome, it sprang out and bounded away. We stayed for a while in the pond area with the poor, bedraggled half-drowned duckie swimming around dizzily in circles. There was no trace of any other ducks and we scoured the pond area to no avail. Eventually, the half-dead duckie got so distressed that Gnome said that it was best to leave her alone until routine feeding time.
We headed back to the house in a forlorn state wondering about our duckies. I checked up on Goosie and he seemed okay sitting under the coconuts. All of a sudden, Gnome and I heard WakWakWak (White Duckie Male Quack) and goosie perked up and hastily bobbed his head from side to side, frantically looking for the source of the noise. As soon as white duck came into sight, Goosie gave a mild honk of relief, ruffled his feathers and slyly sidled up to his best buddy. Gnome and I felt much encouraged by this re-union.
And so we waited the long hour until feeding time. During this time, we tried to put together the events of the afternoon and realised the brave actions of our goosie. Since the goose feathers traced back from the pond to the house, it looked like the goosie took flight back to the house, luring the dog with him. Meanwhile, this gave the rest of the ducks a chance to run off to safety while goosie ran “interference” to save his buddies. Awwwhhh…what a Champ our Goosie is!!
When it was feeding time, we went back to the pond and, to our dismay, found no trace of our distressed damsel. We felt so terrible for leaving our duckie behind earlier and walked back to the house, desperately unhappy, feeling the weight of the world on our shoulders. We fed the rest of our animals and performed the rest of our evening routine. Just as the sun was coming down…it was a deep red tonight like blood spilling across the sky…we heard an insistent QuackQuackQuack outside the duck coup. Our duckie (the dizzy, swimming one) had returned and was trying to get into the coup. Oh, we were so pleased to see that she had recovered and did not look half-drowned anymore!
So far. So good. Only one duckie missing and most probably taken out by the stray dog. Goosie is alive and recuperating. Sleep tight duckies and goosie…don’t let the bad dogs bite!!
