Duke Poultry Farm: Canine Division

Not really. We don't have a poultry farm, just a flock of pampered chickens (who pamper us right back with the best eggs in the world).
What we do have...and you're about to meet them...are two truly fantastic dogs. One is mostly ornamental, and the other is a terribly alert watchdog.
(Spoiler alert: our dogs are not typecast.)
Beau
Beau (no Bo Duke jokes, please) was my wonderful birthday present in 2004. He is a designer dog, flown in from Texas at the height of the Maltepoo craze (I got him before Jessica Simpson received her vicious little Maltepoo onstage from Nick Lachey. Yes, we've had Beau awhile.)

He is named after Confederate General Pierre Beauregard, a nod to his Frenchness and Southern roots (he is 3/4 Maltese and 1/4 Poodle, to be technical...I am no Francophile.) He is smarter than the average human toddler, and better behaved. Here is an old, unedited video of Beau walking in shoes (do not ask me why he was wearing shoes. It is a long story. And please ignore the embarrassing audio track, too...):

He is there the second my feet hit the floor every morning, and accompanies me everywhere. (I mean everywhere.) If someone dares to knock on the door, he will throw his mighty eleven pounds between me and the invader. (He has never bitten anyone. I think I've heard him growl three times. He's a lover, not a fighter; a licker, not a biter.)

He fears no chicken.

 

Bama

Our other amazing dog is a yellow Lab named Bama (SO original, right?). We found her shivering in the cold rain a few years ago, deserted in what I call "Downtown Delta". A handful of food enticed her to our back porch, and we adopted each other. She is 100% Our Dog now, and I cannot fathom why anyone chose to part with her. 

(TRUE STORY: We tethered her to the back porch for her protection at first - we live near a cruel dog-killing highway - and she broke loose and wandered across the road. When I yelled at her, she was so chagrined she fetched her rope and presented it to me.)

I love this dog.

Bama is loyal and loving and occasionally fierce if inspired. (Read: if you tell her to go after something...anything...in the distance.) Throw something, and she will fetch it exactly twice, then sit and regard you with a look that fully emotes, "You get it this time."

In the summer, she is a large, inert object in the yard. Chickens march over her, crossing her like a furry mountain. I have seen a slug hitchhiking a ride on her back. (I am not making this up.) My brother affectionately calls her " White Lightnin' ".

You decide which one is the watchdog (the truth is, they work in concert.) But Beau just exposed his ferocity to five chickens on the porch so I could finish writing this.

Woof and love from Delta.