You haven't done it before now, I thought, because he wasn't ready for most of the time. And, with cats coming in the yard, deer, people running their dogs next to their cars, and plants...well, it was kind of a recipe for a problem.

How wonderful that he can hang out in the fresh air by himself now! :-)

I'm so sorry about the chickens. :-(

We have too many wild animals to not contain our hens. At one time, at the other house, we had a batch of chickens that would leave their yard and land in our yard. They never went anywhere, just perched on a small fence, pecked around, took dust baths, or sat in a large tree. But, come evening, we locked them into their coop for the night.

After that, we had chickens that didn't stay within' a few feet of their chicken yard like the others had (different breeds.), so I made the chicken yard fence taller, which kept them in it.

We've had foxes around them, raccoons, bobcats, and a bear. Also skunks, but they never bothered the birds, they only wanted to see if there were any eggs around, which at night, when they came out, there were not. At least we didn't have dogs, because of our dogs.

In any case, I'm a paranoid chicken mom, and keep my hens in their own chicken yard. We had a couple of escapes last year, when we were still trying to figure out the runs up here, but we grabbed them right away.

Good dog, Charlie!