our dear, sweet, playful dogs have officially bought their ticket out of our lives. i'm sad about this, but we really have no choice.

aside from the 5 hens they've massacred, they attacked butters... 5 minutes into being out in the pasture with her. they bit her legs--trying to hamstring her--and caused her to gash her belly with a kicking hoof. matt managed to stop it before they really hurt her, but it was bad enough. so they have been locked in their cages (outside of the pasture, as butters was charging them) for the past several days, and we both feel bad about it but they just can't be trusted.

the problems are:
- they escape any/all fence with impunity
- they kill chickens (though matt raised the walls on the chicken coop and only the rooster can now escape)
- they are bold enough to try to take down a COW
- we can't get goats or sheep with them
- they could hurt the children and i'm not convinced they wouldn't, accidentally or not

it sucks. fencing them in another part of the yard is not an option because 1) we have no money for fencing and 2) they escape anyway. kids and animals will always be at risk while they are around. we're lucky they haven't caught neki, our outside cat yet.

blah. i am going to miss them, and i really don't want to be without a dog... both for the kids as a pet and for myself as i am home alone most of the time. we just can't take the kind of chance it has come down to with them. we cannot afford to have injured animals and if anything happened to the little ones...


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