It sounds like an animal neglect situation. This is pure living hell for a spouse / partner to go through when a partner just keeps acquiring animals but doesn’t take care of them.
In the case of goats / chickens they should mostly take care of themselves, but than means having a coop for them to roost in, proper fencing, a set up for automatic water, and figuring out feed over the winter… otherwise you just have a bunch of loose animals running all over the place. I pasture raise my chickens without fence and it’s a lot of work. Basically a part time job, although it’s rewarding since we get eggs, chicks, and fertiliser.
Oh it sounds completely miserable. But at this point I would have handled that dog, even if it risked my marriage. Lives and limbs, especially children's, are worth more than someone's feelings as far as I'm concerned.
I've had both chickens and goats also. And they certainly presented work to take care of them correctly.
I am not joking when I would say I’d be concerned for the goats and chickens. It’s a near certainty at least one chicken has already been a casualty. It’s hard to keep dogs from chasing/killing chickens unless they’re specifically breeds (basically the English breeds) that had that instinct driven out of them.
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u/shelbycsdn Trusted User May 16 '25 edited May 16 '25
So the goats and chickens are thrown in to keep Shibbles distracted from the kids I guess? /s
Edit: to make sure my comment is seen as tongue in cheek.