I used to be the apple of this beautiful, handsome beast’s eye but I have been usurped. He now loves another…….Mo, our new chicken.

I am full of jealousy and misery that my gentle and faithful companion has decided that I am no longer worthy of his devotion and has supplanted me with Mo.

What’s even more strange about this is that Mo is, well, to put it bluntly, more than a bit wary of him. You see, others that are not dissimilar to him savaged two of her ‘mates’ so she ended up alone and lonely. She also met with the jaws of death but survived with a few missing tail feathers, which are not yet grown back.

So, she was uprooted and moved here to spend her days being ousted from the henhouse by her new peers as often and as forcefully as they could. The only reason why she wasn’t totally cast out was that we are bigger than Sherri and our will, in the end, wins out.

Thankfully these days Mo is part of the pack, rather than an unwanted outsider and she seems to have successfully planted herself in second position in the pecking order, behind Sherri. She’s also got new feather growth on her tail and although they are not yet fully formed, they will soon cover her bald patches.

Now though, far from being a threat, her new canine companion has decided to throw all his love and affection her way, despite a rocky start to their friendship. When she first arrived, she was so terrified of him, she’d go dashing off, in her funny little chicken run way and he’d give chase. We couldn’t leave him unsupervised in the garden because she’d just panic and he’d go charging off after her.

These days wherever she is, he’s half a pace behind her, watching her with an adoring gaze. When she goes to bed at night and he can’t follow her through the tiny coop door, he sits himself down outside the coop and protects her from his little vigil outside.

He wouldn’t even raise himself from his comfy spot on the sofa to participate in this photo shoot without a great deal of bribery. In fact, the shot was taken while I was waving a chocolate drop an inch above the lens!

I am bereft.

Last year, ET was my subject.