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Homer the Flying Puppy

Lisa Nee of Madison, a writer and president of Allen/Nee Productions, writes an occasional column, Such is Life, for Shore Publishing; in this installment, the first of a two-part series, she writes about her new housemate.

Now is the time, because there is time to tell the story. The story of Homer the Flying Puppy.

This is how it begins.

Part One: The first four months

“Is this a chicken?” That was the question, along with a picture that I texted to my sister in Los Angeles.

For years, besides being a television producer, my younger sister Rachel has been raising chickens in the heart of Los Angeles. A pretty potpourri of poultry, too, and a few pugilists, including a breed called a Silkie that traumatized her dogs and was sent away to rooster rehab.

The bird in question first arrived in our yard in late July. The fowl was striking and not only for its looks, bright white with burgundy-brown wings and a matching cap shape on its crown, but also for its mannerisms. This bird, a little smaller than a hearty seagull, would float down from our roof and peck and scratch at the dirt for food, ignoring the birdfeeder. Like clockwork, it fed three times a day, then would glide, not fly, over to our nearby koi pond to wet its whistle.

So when my sister texted me back, “Nope, not a chicken. That’s a pigeon,” I was flummoxed.

I always thought of pigeons as those grey-blue birds that inhabit every nook and cranny of Urbania, Dumpster-diving and rising in dark flocks to block the sun. Docile, singular, and pretty was never in my pigeon lexicon.

Upon closer inspection, I noted a band around the pigeon’s leg. It took me a few days, but I eventually got a picture of the entire band, which revealed a series of letters and numbers. Soon I had gone down the rabbit hole of research.

What we have here is a homing pigeon!

Heroes Throughout Time

Throughout all of the time, the heroics of homing pigeons have been legendary. One such story is of that of Cher Ami. During the Meuse-Argonne offensive of World War 1, after soldiers carrying messages and two prior pigeons had been shot, Cher Ami was the last hope. Cher Ami flew from behind enemy lines where the American troops were trapped. Cher Ami was shot through the breast, fell to the ground, rose again, and successfully carried a crucial message to an American commander. The message said, “We are along the road parallel [sic] to 276.4. Our own artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us. For heaven’s sake, stop it”.

Cher Ami’s act of heroism saved hundreds of American lives, and it earned her medals and a spot in the Smithsonian.

I learned a homing pigeon is worth anywhere from $5 to much more, with the $400,000 being the most paid for a prime racing pigeon.

I now looked upon our avian visitor with a great deal more reverence.

Yet, when I called the American Pigeon Association with all the numbers on its leg band, they said, “No one wants a lost homing pigeon. If you returned it to the owner, it would be euthanized.”

Gasp! Murder most fowl, dear Pidgie, you escaped a dreadful fate.

By now, our family had become fond of our Pidgie, I would sometimes bring out my morning coffee, and she would float down and sit at a safe distance. We decided to name him/her Homer.

Homer, as in homing pigeon; Homer as in the author of the Odyssey in which Odysseus’ journey home lasts 10 years; Homer as in The Simpsons, Doh! That is not a chicken.

Hero? Or Hawkmeat?

We were all happy with the arrangement of outside bird, inside people until a visiting construction worker and racing pigeon aficionado saw Homer and announced, “We would call a bird like that Hawkmeat.”

Our property, like many on the shoreline, has many deft birds of prey. I once saw a hawk swoop in and snatch an innocent mourning dove from the koi pond, the one from which Homer drinks.

With the onset of fall and less foliage, Pidgie was in even more peril. With her bright white feathers, and being naive to the ways of the wild, her becoming Hawkmeat was a certainty.

Distraught at Homer’s possible demise, on the weekend I was out of town, my husband opened a sliding glass door to our house, and Homer walked right in.

There was no plan.

I called the local bird rescue site.

She asked, “Is the bird injured?” “No,” I said. She replied with great alacrity, “That pigeon has chosen you. Lucky you.”

My sister (the chicken-farming-television-producer) said, “I think Homer is the reincarnation of your dear departed dog Lili.” (For more on Lili, you can read my earlier column “The Dog That Stayed” at www.zip06.com.)

Mulling this thought over, I realized pigeon and pooch did have a lot of similarities.

My son found our dog wandering a highway without a collar, and, without a plan, that dog owned us for 16 years.

Coffee Seals the Deal

Avian and canine had a similar color pattern, bright white with dark accents, they both had eyes that could look at you with such intensity, as if seeing everything in your soul, good and bad, and still deem you worthy of being loved.

We also realized it was nearly a year to the day that our sweet Lili died, and Homer flew into our lives.

Lili had some strange habits, she buried pizza (read that story, “The Madison Dog That Went Viral,” at Zip06.com—and watch the video, too) and liked to drink coffee all day long.

So when Homer put his beak into my coffee, that sealed the deal. Our dear dog had grown wings and is now Homer the Flying Puppy.

I gravitate toward this interpretation of the universe, in which goodness never dies, it’s just on a boomerang course back to you in ever-evolving forms. Woe is less heavy, rumination shorter, awe more often; that is how you know you’ve been sent a form of happiness.

Homer chooses to sleep in a basket on a shelf in our entryway closet, with his food and water nearby. Of her own volition, she eats three times a day and takes a bath every Thursday.

Homer has free rein of the house, she (or is it he?) sits near me while I work, hangs out in the bookshelves, waits by the window for you to come home, but her favorite spot is to sit near the Alexa smart device and listen to music. Yet as friendly and personable as he is, we are not to reach for or touch him.

The question on everyone’s mind is, “But what do you do about the poop?” Well, Homer does poop in the house, but it is a similar to living with a toddler, wiping up the mess throughout the day. Truth be told, our house is cleaner because I disinfect surfaces much more frequently. Also, it was in the interest of whoever raised our Pidgie to have the healthiest bird possible. Homer consumes only high-grade pigeon seed and doesn’t interact with wildlife.

You may have noticed I interchange pronouns, he/she, him/her. It is very difficult to determine the gender of a pigeon, but there are a few people out there, let’s call them pigeon whisperers, who can crack fowl mysteries.

Go ahead, say we’ve gone a little loopy for loving a lost pigeon, or for thinking she might be the spirit of our departed dog. He may not have been able to race his way back to his owner, but he did find his way home, our home. Homer the Flying Puppy.

So that’s the abbreviated story, medication and intervention not needed.

Next, Part 2: Meet the Pigeon Whisperer, and the gender reveal.