Many years ago we had a chicken who was sick and needed a fair bit of human help. Fully recovered she attached herself to the humans and demanded to be alowed into the house when she required. Although she was allowed to wander between the house and her outdoor friends/enclosure, she was often to be found sleeping happily in front of our old boiler on the dog blanket.
Then there was the duckling - a sole survivor of a badger's raid on an egg nest, found him just hatching with no sign of any parents, so took him in. Grew up to be a real house duck, totally at home and very friendly with any visitors. Made him an outside pond (refused to organise some kind of pond indoors!!) and he always had a bowl of freshwater beside his food bowl. Never a problem with our dogs or cats - think he considered himself a dog anyway as he loved to snuggle up on human laps while watching the evening tv!
But before either of these two there was the goose - Martha by name! Took her in as a fairly old bird as she had been a pet and constant companion of a friend who had sadly died. Martha did live an outdoor/indoor life and would tap on our patio doors when she wanted to come in, usually to curl up on the rug with the dog in front of our living room fire. She would always be beside you when outside - took a while for the horses to get use to her invading their stalls when we were mucking out/round the yard. She would come to call and always answered you when you called or spoke to her. She just loved to be carried around tucked under your arm (she was pretty heavy so we tried to discourage this which made her very cross and very demanding until someone gave in and picked her up!) But her favourite occupation was to accompany you on any car rides, sitting on the front seat watching the word pass by - got us some funny looks I can tell you!! LOL!! A great character, but after 3 years of being Martha slaves, we sadly lost her as she passed away in her sleep one night.
