Wednesday, February 08, 2006

A FOWL STORY WITH A HAPPY ENDING

Sometimes I wonder about people and their love for pets. Not just any type of pet mind you but a chicken. Don't get me wrong because I'm a chicken lover...well a chicken liker anyway, but I prefer mine barbecued with a side order of french fries.

All of this is leading to a story concerning how the life of chicken was saved due to the quick thinking of a retired nurse. The fowl who was owned or lived with the nurse's brother, was found floating beak down in the family pond. This leads one to ask a variation of that age-old question: "why did the chicken cross the road?" and in this case, "why did the chicken jump in the pond?" with the answer probably being, because it was there...the pond, that is. Chicken's aren't the brightest sparks on this planet.

Getting back to the story the nurse who said she hadn't practiced CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) in years, for some reason or the other known only to her, decided she was going to try and revive the chicken to see if she "still had it."

O-kaaaaay...

It's one thing to give a human being mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but it's an entirely different issue when you're dealing with a beak.

Presumably, she first checked to see if the chicken had a pulse. Perhaps she probed the chicken's neck with her fingers or being that she was a nurse, maybe she had a spare stethoscope hanging around the house and listened to the chicken breast.

Go know!

According to the story the nurse put her lips on the chicken's beak and breathed life back into the poultry. When you think about where chicken's live and the type of pecking they do and where they do it, you have to give this woman credit.

Once the chicken was revived the nurse advised the owners to put in a box and keep it warm, which they did. The owners speculated that the chicken who frightened easily, had been startled and flopped into the pond. Imagine how the fowl felt when it came to and was greeted with a human face a few inches away from it.

This reminds me about a friend who gave her pet dog mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and was very proud to supply all the grimy details regarding the method involved. Contrary to what people believe, dog's saliva is not the cure-all as it was once believed to be.

At one point - at least among my circle of friends - when a child had a nasty scratch, someone would inevitably offer the advice: "let the dog lick it. It'll heal faster." This is not recommended by the medical community these days.

I've owned pet fish - many, many pet fish - who went to meet their maker in the great toilet tank in the sky and never, not once, have I ever felt the urge to give it "the kiss of life." Let me state for the record that I'm a big fish lover, especially with a blob of tartar sauce and a squeeze of lemon.

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