- Jul 21, 2014
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I am no where near confident that Bear still won't hurt or kill the baby chicks if he could get to them, but we are making huge progress. He will walk with me to the pen and just lay in front of the gate. He is no longer quivering with anticipation to get to them. The only time he shows any real interest is when they begin flapping their wings and a lot of movement and even then I can shush him back down to a lay and he stays. For the most part if I am not at the pen - he ignores it except to walk out rarely and go stand on the deck around the larger structure to look down and around - that has always been his perch to survey the yard for danger so I am not going to try and stop him. He's been doing that for almost five years, but this morning - we had a cat try to come over the fence near where the chicks are. Our pen is completely covered so I wasn't really concerned she could get in. Bear likes cats. Doesn't have a problem with cats - only squirrel and possum, but that cat was near the chicks and he promptly went, ran the cat off and stayed in front of the pen watching. Not sure whether he was protecting the chickens or just didn't want anything else to get near them because he is not allowed to get near them, but he stayed for a good while. I know he was standing guard and on high alert because he had his big old tail raised up in the air like a flag. That's what he does when something is going on that he alerts to, so I know the cat coming over the fence disturbed him. Like I said we are still a long way from trusting him - but he is making progress. After that first day I wasn't sure he would ever get to even this point, but so far so good. We're going to keep trying so we can have some harmony between the chicks and the dog.