The Golden girls

Many years ago, not quite in a previous life, I kept chickens.

Actually I'm planning to again. The "Hen palace" has been built (not by my own not-so-fair hand, I hasten to add). It was finished months ago. All that's required now are the occupants to take up residence.

But I digress.

The brood of chickens - if it can be called that - was not exactly enormous. Just four, bought from a local farmer at around seven weeks and named after the characters in that long-running US comedy show the Golden Girls: Dorothy, Sophia, Blanche and Rose.

Theirs was meant to be a long and happy free-range life but sadly for three of them it was cut short by the unwanted attentions of a couple of my cockers.

Now they might not be the brainiest dogs around (add as many exclamations marks as you wish and don't hold back on the observation that dogs apparently often resemble their owners - or vice versa) but they are on the whole loving and tender creatures.

Unfortunately as I was to discover at the cost of three of the hens, their natural hunting instincts remained intact.

It was probably my fault for not having closed the gate to the pen properly, but one day I heard an almighty excited yelping from the dastardly duo and on rounding the corner, I discovered the scene of fowl play.

Dorothy, Sophia and Blanche lay bloodied and dead on the ground. Only Rose had escaped, unharmed.

Not the most propitious start, but I couldn't leave Rose alone now, could I? So another trip to the farmer and three more hens to replace those that were no longer with us.

Meanwhile I had learnt my lesson. The new arrivals remained unnamed (just to avoid soppy attachment) and the dogs were introduced slowly to them with an ever watchful eye and a barking command should they approach too close.

Fast forward a month or so and the eggs started coming.

But something didn't seem quite right - at least not with Rose.

Was she somehow still mourning the loss of her previous three companions?

Could that be the explanation for her more guarded and slightly less friendly comportment?

Whereas the other three would happily come when called (it was the period in my life when "cluck" became a regular part of my early morning vocabulary) she held back, seemingly eyeing me up with a look of disdain.

Was it it possible, I asked myself, for chickens to show contempt? Or was I just simply anthropomorphising.

But there was something else bothering me about Rose.

She was bigger, broader and altogether more masculine looking than the others, with a comb and a wattle to match that made her appear...well, different from the others.

And then it happened.

One morning I heard the distinctive dawn crowing and it seemed to be coming from MY hen house.

I charged downstairs to let the birds out and sure enough - Rose continued her call.

"She" of course was a "he" and had been all along.

It was just my inexperienced eye that had failed to acknowledge earlier what would probably have been patently obvious to anyone else; that Rose had been missexed.

Somehow I never quite got used to the idea of Rose being a "he" although that's most definitely what she was.

She proved it all the time, defending her girls and chasing the (now fully deferential) dogs around the garden. Oh yes how the proverbial tables had turned.

Gradually though, both Rose's aggression towards anything or anyone who came near her and the demands of her sexual appetite on the other three made her something of a handful, and not one I could manage.

So with a heavy heart I decided she had to go.

Not to the pot mind you. I'm sufficiently squeamish not to be able eat something I've named and raised.

Instead Rose took early retirement with the same local farmer from whom I had bought her on condition that she be allowed to live out her days ruling the roost - just elsewhere.

So Rose, this one's in memory of you. Perhaps not entirely appropriate as there was most definitely nothing "3e sexe" about you.

Cockers rescued from the "kennel of shame"

Sadly the following is not a fluffy kitten tale or a cute puppy one. Nor is it one likely to go viral on the Net. Instead it's an all too common occurrence especially in the weird and not-so-wonderful world that is dog breeding.

Just one of the 152 cockers (screenshot from video of the rescue)

They call it "the kennel of shame" in their report detailing what animal inspectors discovered when they arrived at the home of a dog breeder in the village of Peyrat-le-Château in the west-central département of Haute-Vienne shortly before Christmas.

And surely the charity Fondation 30 millions d'amis used exactly the right term in describing the deplorable conditions in which they found 152 English cockers spaniels living.

Cockers living in a car (screenshot from video of the rescue)

Rather than the active, good-natured and merry bundles of fun that characterise the breed, inspectors encountered undernourished and often sick dogs locked in cars and caravans or crammed into a 12 square metre chalet.

Many of the dogs were starving and had no access to fresh water.

"One bitch had a severed leg" reported the Fondation. "Some of the dogs even had their eyes gouged out".

After the rescue the dogs were taken to nearby animal shelters where, according to one volunteer Martine Attali, it could take many of them at least a month to be brought back to a condition in which they can be found new homes.

"They are weak and dehydrated and require emergency care," she said.

Although undoubtedly a "success" for the Fondation in its efforts to campaign against "all forms of animal suffering", the rescue of the cockers will hardly leave it rejoicing as a brief look at its site reveals that, even though the numbers of dogs involved was perhaps unusually high, this is far from being an isolated case.

And the maximum penalty it can expect as a result of the breeder being prosecuted?

"A fine of €30,000 and two years imprisonment (under article 521-1 of the penal code)," reports the Fondation.

"And maybe a lifelong ban from keeping animals."

A pitiful story made all the more unpalatable by the comparatively paltry maximum sentence that can be handed down in such a case.

The Fondation is a charity created in 1995 and is a spin-off from a hugely successful television programme of the same name.