Pigeon Poop

You know how as life continues, you encounter various new experiences occurring in your life? Well today, awakening brought me to a new task that no matter how much I scratch my head, has never happened prior. First, Macy came into my room, something she doesn't seem to do without a reason. she hopped up on my bed and nuzzled up to me and went to sleep. I thought that odd. My room is a small 12' X 11' extra bedroom with a king sized bed with 2 dressers and an amour. There's a path to the bed and not much else. It gives me claustrophobia and I'm sure Macy our 80 lb pup feels the same. After a few minutes, Macy decided it was play time so I decided to get up and start the day. I threw on a pair of pants and a t-shirt and headed out, into the family room with Macy close behind me. That's when I saw 2 of the largest pigeons roosting on the drapery rod over our sliding door. I was genuinely hoping that the pigeons were on the outside and only appeared to be indoors. No such luck. These suckers were the size of chickens! Those two had somehow made it inside the house and were in just as much of a rush to get out as I was to have them out. Macy, about 18 months old, must have encountered the pair of nesting birds and decided to seek refuge in my room, explaining her unusual visit. LJ wasn't home, but has a habit of leaving her sliding door in her bedroom wide open, to give Macy access to the yard at her leisure. I tend to frown on this idea because even though it gives access to Macy, it also give availability to the variety of flies and desert vermin to the house and my worst fear is coyotes. We're on the golf course and the coyotes wander the 13th hole that we're on, as well as all the others every night at their will. Today pigeons, but tomorrow, who knows?


Macy comes from behind me and squats and pees on the spot. Being a dog person, I realize she is doing her inborn reaction of marking her territory. She declared the family room hers and I went for the mop! At this point Macy becomes Macy the great hunting dog of Arizona and lashes out an attack at the birds, that are not only scared to death, but well out of harms way on the drapery rod. However, they decide to go airborne and fly without a flight course around the family room at will and flying at full speed into the windows. Now my fear is that they will knock themselves out and fall to the floor where Macy with have an early Thanksgiving dinner!


I need to extract Macy from the situation before it becomes a bloodbath. So I take her outside and lock her inside the pool area, a place that we usually lock her out of, since her unscheduled swimming lesson last winter. Macy had been going around topless without her collar and was not an easy dog to grab a hold of, however, where there is a will, there is a way. Back to the problem at hand. Pigeon herding.


My first thought is to get a cue stick from the rack and use it as a long roosting spot for the birds. This really surprised me. I lifted the cue stick up in front of the pigeon very slowly and gently pushed it into the bird's chest and I'll be a son of a gun, he hopped on and I ever so gently carried him on the end of the pool stick, out the sliding door. 50% done, I now approach the second and only bird left and attempt the same thing, but no luck. This time he goes airborne and is flying about and hides himself within the confines of a fake corn plant and he's wedged against the wall. Tough place to maneuver. This time he flies off and lands somehow under the pool table, where I try to herd him out, but he takes a left where he should have taken a right and winds up at the farthest point in the house from where I have to lead him, to get out. You could just tell from dealing with this bird, he was no genius! But then again, I'm the one that he's outsmarting. Now, I try to get behind him and accomplish that and kind of herd him out to the family room and with him waddling in his little pigeon walk, looking back over his left shoulder every so often to see if I'm still there or just a bad bird dream?


We find ourselves about 6 feet from the sliding glass doors that are now at full mast, wide open and I gently tap him on the bird butt with my cue stick and he flies out the door to welcome wings of his mate that was sitting in a nearby tree rooting him on. Mission accomplished and not a single bird was injured during the writing of this story!


Now all I have to do is clean up that puddle and a whole lot of pigeon poop.