Got chickens? Here’s how to disguise them as dogs

Some time ago I wrote a column about the difficulties you can face when a dear friend asks you to scatter his ashes and this turns out to be really inconvenient, and I recommended just chucking them in your green bin because, at that point in the proceedings, how is your dear friend going to know?

In that column, I mentioned that I make it a point to carry a copy of the Toronto Municipal Code with me everywhere ( according to the municipal code there is no prohibition against scattering ashes, but between the lines it’s pretty clear authorities consider it one of the more unsanitary acts a citizen can commit, so, a word to the wise: avoid food-preparation areas, etc.) since it “ is always useful to have around to settle things like bets about whether it is lawful to keep goats in the city.”

It generated quite a bit of mail. Not the ashes part.

That part didn’t generate any, although a neighbour complained that I had ignored some major risks associated with scattering them. He said it had been his dear father’s final wish to have his ashes scattered from the bridge on Dundas St. where it crosses the Don Valley Parkway, and as a dutiful son he had complied as best he could.

“ As best you could?” I asked.

“That’s what I mean about your failure to specify all the potential hazards,” he said. “ For instance, blowback.” As he scattered the ashes, a wind had come up and blown them back all over his good suit which he had worn in honour of the occasion.

“ So now my father is in the DelRay Cleaners on Parliament St.” The mail I received had to do with keeping goats in the city and my failure to specify, when I alluded to the existence of a relevant bylaw, whether it was in fact legal.

“Well,” readers wrote, “is it?” Often going on to add things like, “if this is what passes for journalism nowadays, no wonder newspaper circulation is going down the dumper.”

I apologize.

Here, re. goats, in the words of Section 581:2(b), is the situation: “Don’t even think about it. And that goes double for chickens.” But don’t let this get you down. We determined goatand/ chicken-keepers have found it is possible to keep one, or even a small herd and/ or flock, by disguising them as dogs.

This isn’t too difficult with goats, since they have many of the same attributes as dogs — four legs, a nauseating inclination to eat garbage.

Disguising a chicken as a dog, however, requires genuine dedication, especially with the leash laws that are in effect. It takes years to train a chicken to walk on a leash, even forgetting that it has to do it while wearing fake ears and dentures, an obligatory item since toothlessness is one thing chicken- bylaw enforcement officers are trained to spot. “Excuse me, sir,” they will say, “but your dog looks dubious.” “Dubious? My faithful dog? How dare you?”

It’s no use, though. A show of bravado will not even slightly deter a seasoned, duly sworn chicken-checker.

“Indeed,” he will say. “I am going to have to ask you to let me examine its choppers.”

That’s where you’ve got him. Because you’ve had the foresight to have your chicken fitted with a full set of false dog teeth.

Peeling back its lips ( lips are also problematic, but having managed to train a chicken to lift its leg when it widdles, the lip obstacle is by no means insuperable; does the word “ Botox” mean anything to you?) you shout triumphantly, “Well get a load of these, pal!”

This will strike some of you as a whole lot of trouble to go to just to keep chickens in the city, especially if you’re one of those people who aren’t particularly fond of chickens on the hoof as opposed to in, say, a bucket from the Colonel.

Possibly you can’t stand having them stare at you with their little beady eyes.

It is, I agree, kind of off-putting, especially if you have a guilty conscience about something and the persistent staring, and its implacable beadiness, keeps reminding you about what a truly despicable excuse for a human being you are. One solution is to put little blindfolds on them.

This will cause them to go around bumping into things, which is quite entertaining, but more important it will keep you from lying awake all night, night after night, positively sick with remorse. Slinger’s column appears Tuesday and Thursday.