I'm prejudiced against hounds as pets, especially Beagles. Pack dogs. I don't care for purebred dogs generally, having found that they tend to have problems due to inbreeding.
So, what does She come home and "surprise" me with? A papered Beagle pup that she has christened "Snuffalupagus". Ick!
I don't know if you have ever been around a hen with baby chicks. If not, you have really missed something. On the farm, we had a "game" hen that the kids called "Big Mama", for her mothering skills, though she was not a large bird. Not physically.
Snuff had a serious problem: he could not leave chickens alone. Oh, he knew better than to mess with Big Mama. She would rise up in the air and come down on his head like a buzz saw. But I once shot a dead Orpington out of his mouth with a thirty-ought-six. He understood exactly what I meant by that, and he became deathly afraid of guns, but he still could not leave my chickens alone.
In Texas, in the winter, you can get ice storms, when the world is encased in frozen rain. In such a winter, Big Mama made a nest out in the weeds, laid thirteen eggs, and hatched out thirteen chicks.
Then, one morning at dawn, I was awakened by a loud ruckus from Big Mama. I looked out the window, to see that a sparrow
hawk was diving down, trying to get her chicks. I leaped out of bed, stark naked, grabbed the double-barrel off the wall, and ran down the stairs, loading it. When I burst out the back door, screaming bloody hell, my feet slipped out from under
me on the icy steps, and I fell flat on my uh, back on the icy ground. The twelve-gauge also landed on its butt, discharging both barrels into the air.
I got to my feet, to find that the hawk had disappeared, and to see that sorry Beagle's fat butt disappearing through the weeds. I never saw him again.
Well, not long after that, I saw a local redneck doting on a very familiar-looking dog. But, you see one Beagle, you've seen 'em all.
Oh; she raised thirteen chicks to adulthood.