This dialogue reminds me of an event that happened when I was a kid, maybe 10 years old. We lived in a small town of 200 people in NE Kansas. It was not uncommon in those days to abandon dogs that were no longer wanted. My small town became a favorite dumping ground for dogs, At least, that's what we believed at the time. We adopted several of them and those were our pets in those days. There was no humane center. We used to buy baby chickens and raise them to eat. On one occasion we bought our usual batch of chicks which we kept in a temporary pen made of chicken wire until they were big enough to transfer to the regular chicken pen. One morning I awoke to the sounds of a dog chasing the chicks around the pen. By this time they were about the size of pigeons. I raced into my parents bedroom and woke them up. My day jumped out of bed and grabbed the old single shot 12 ga. My mom grabbed a shell and slide it in the chamber as my day put on his slippers. I'll never forget the sight of my dad striding across the yard in his tidy-whities and slippers. The dog was busy eating a chicken when he saw my dad. He made run for the gate but never made it. He killed the dog, but not before it had killed 27 of our 50 chicks. The second part of the story, the sadder part, about 2 weeks later our own dog, an adopted stray, killed all but 3 of the remaining flock. That dog met the same fate, but mom kept us kids away while my dad did the deed. In those days, there was only one cure for chicken killers.
