To our left we could see colourful stalls on both sides of the street which led to the usual market square and to our right, towards the medieval heart of the town, we could hear a cacophony of clucks, quacks, cheeps and chirps. We decided to investigate these first. We found a row of traders with big wire cages full of live birds and a few rabbits which they had brought to the market in lorries. Yellow plastic crates for transporting this livestock were stacked everywhere. There were hundreds of baby birds, geese, chickens, ducks and turkeys, and young adults of the same species. As far as we could tell, they weren’t being bought immediately for the pot but to replenish stocks. Even if they no longer farmed for a living, most country people in the area had enough land to raise their own poultry and they turned up their noses at shop-bought eggs and battery chickens. The expert wives buying the birds drove a hard bargain: we could hear the odd derisory laugh at the mention of an initial asking price. When their customers had eventually selected their live purchases, the traders would swoop into the wire cages and pick the birds out, stuffing them into cardboard boxes with ready-made air-holes, for easy carriage home. We watched in admiration as the breeders picked up four grown chickens in one hand, holding them upside down by the feet while the fowl flapped their wings and protested loudly. These stalls attracted the young children who stood mesmerised, fingers in mouths, studying the baby birds. As a special treat their grannies let them hold the cardboard boxes which they carried very carefully, often snatching a squint at the scrabbling occupants through the dark air-holes. All the poultry traders were clustered around the steps of the town’s Romanesque church. Take away the lorries and the plastic crates, we thought, and this scene must have been played out regularly since medieval times.

From The Duck with the Dirty Laugh by Anne Loader.

Before our next visit the two canine inseparables, Riquette and Moustique, had been joined by an unlikely addition. Pierre, who kept no sheep, had been given a caid lamb. Odile bottle fed it and Riquette adopted it and brought it up in her idea of the paths of righteousness. Whiskey, as Pierre had named the lamb, lived and played with the dogs, copying their behaviour patterns to perfection. As far as he knew, he was a dog and comported himself as such, running with them and bleating his hardest when they barked. When we arrived at the farm he was almost fully grown and pushed his way forward with Moustique and Riquette to be patted and head scratched. So Pierre now brought in the cows to be milked helped by two dogs and a sheep. Whiskey kept to heel with the others and ran with Riquette to herd in any straying cow. Every visitor made a great fuss of him but he still tried to bark with the dogs when strange vehicles appeared.

A delivery truck stopped outside the farmhouse when Pierre and Odile were in the farthest field examining a cow that had dropped her calf unexpectedly during the night. Grandmère was still in her bed and the three animals did their duty, running round the truck and barking or bleating aggressively. The driver prudently stayed in his cab, waiting for the dogs to be called off. "Riquette! Moustique!" we called. "Taisez-vous! A la maison!" The two dogs obediently stopped barking and stood by the house door. Whiskey, who had not been called by name, continued to bleat and, as the driver descended, butted him furiously in the legs until he scrambled back to safety. "Whiskey! A la maison!" Whiskey reluctantly ceased his aggression and stood stiffly alert with the dogs, looking equally watchful. The driver cautiously came down again. "Is that Whiskey? The sheep? Is he mad or what?" "No, we told him, he just thinks he’s a dog." "Bloody hell! It’s not true!" He rubbed his bruised shins and began to unload the delivery, giving a cautious and disbelieving glance at Whiskey from time to time. "Sacré nom d’un chien! Chassé par un mouton. Soyez gentils, je vous en prie. N’en parlez point dans la region, autrement je serai la rise de tout le monde!" We hastened to assure him that we would tell no-one from the region of his flight from an angry sheep and that he need have no fear of becoming a laughing stock. He finished his unloading, drank our proffered glass and departed.

From Only Fools Drink Water by Geoffrey Morris.