District animal officials interrupted a plan by a Park Road woman to “sacrifice” two chickens to mark the anniversary of her father’s death. According to the Post, the Humane Society found three sickly chickens in a dirty cage. Two had their feet bound, the other had an eye injury. Records show that the woman was cited for keeping chickens in dirty cages three years ago. Though the incident is odd, it isn’t as strange as this report of possible animal sacrifice from earlier this month.

In other interesting Animal Watch items include: a goose that couldn’t escape a W Street SW yard; a Rhode Island Avenue Labrador Retriever left in the rain; a Rottweiler that brought an opossum into its owner’s living room; and an injured deer that eluded capture and a sedative dart near Vice President Cheney’s house.

DCist notes that there are numerous deer that hide out on the Normanstone Trail behind the vice president’s Naval Observatory residence. While it isn’t surprising that a deer would run up Massachusetts Avenue from the wooded edges of the Naval Observatory, we can only imagine the surprised look of drivers seeing animal control officers trying to shoot a deer outside the vice president’s house.