Miscellaneous

Malibu chicken joins household dog pack

Guardian recounts Stevie the hen living like a dog, Social order forms without rulebooks

Images

Jessica Davis with ‘confident, outgoing’ Stevie. Photograph: Courtesy of Jessica Davis Jessica Davis with ‘confident, outgoing’ Stevie. Photograph: Courtesy of Jessica Davis theguardian.com
Jessica with Stevie and dog Boomer. Photograph: Courtesy of Jessica Davis Jessica with Stevie and dog Boomer. Photograph: Courtesy of Jessica Davis theguardian.com
Stevie with Tucker and Pancho. Photograph: Courtesy of Jessica Davis Stevie with Tucker and Pancho. Photograph: Courtesy of Jessica Davis theguardian.com

In 2021, a Buff Orpington hen named Stevie arrived at a Malibu property as a foster from a local animal shelter and promptly decided she was part of the dog pack. In a Guardian “The pet I’ll never forget” vignette, her owner Jessica Davis describes a chicken that slept in dog beds, followed the dogs’ routines, and ran up to be picked up, “like a dog”, before laying eggs in improbable places—bookshelves, kennels, around the house.

The story reads like a novelty, but it is also a small field report on how order forms without formal rules. Davis says her six dogs were initially wary and she could not leave them alone with Stevie, but within about a week the dynamic stabilised and the dogs treated her “like one of the pack”. No training manuals, no behaviour consultants, no committee: just repeated interaction, clear boundaries, and the costs of misbehaviour borne immediately by the animals involved. The chicken’s strategy is equally plain. A lone bird in a large yard is vulnerable; attaching herself to larger, socially cohesive animals is protection, warmth, and access. The dogs, meanwhile, learn that this particular moving object is not prey but a recognised member of the household.

Stevie also undercuts a common human assumption about chickens as interchangeable livestock. Davis expected the birds to “frolic in the yard and barely pay attention” to people; instead, she describes a confident animal that sought contact, mirrored behaviour, and navigated a multi-species hierarchy successfully. The egg-laying “anywhere she liked” is not just comedic—it's a reminder that animals optimise for convenience and safety, not for human-designed systems like coops and designated nesting boxes. When the environment changes, behaviour changes.

After a year and a half, Davis rehomed Stevie to a friend with more than 30 chickens and two dogs, reasoning that a bigger flock would be better for the bird’s comfort and security. Davis says Stevie still recognises her and runs up “like a little puppy” when she visits.

Stevie’s story ends not with a moral but with a practical detail: a chicken that learned the local rules well enough to join a canine group was still moved to where the species-level needs—numbers, safety, routine—could be met.