A man’s out-of-the-ordinary pet has gained him a lot of attention on social media.
Dave Cox is a residential general contractor from Destin, Florida. For 17 years, he and his dog Cort were very close. The pair had a special bond, and when Cort died, Cox was devastated.
“Cort and I had a very close relationship,” Cox told TODAY. “He died when he was 17. It was very sad and I truly believe I will never find another dog like him. We just had a connection.”
The passing of his dog hit Cox deeply, and he wasn’t sure whether he should try to get another dog, because he felt like he wouldn’t be able to replicate a relationship like the one he had with Cort.
“After he passed, I knew I wasn’t ready to take on another dog,” Cox said.
Despite not being sure about a second dog, he felt he needed another companion, another pet to keep him company. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, but he knew he was open to something that was out of the ordinary.
Unsure of what to expect, Cox walked into a feed store, and in that store, he decided to buy a 3-day-old chick.
“What possessed me to consider a chicken, I will never know,” Cox said to TODAY.
He named the chick Sammi, and he began to teach her to ride with him in his pickup truck. Soon, she was very comfortable at his side.
“She started going with me everywhere,” Cox said. “We’d just go to the beach; we love to swim in the ocean together and we would go on adventures. I would just always take her with me.”
According to News4Jax, Sammi also loved snacking on strawberries with her new owner.
Whenever Cox traveled with Sammi, he recalled that many people came up to him to ask whether they could hold the bird and take pictures with her. For some people, they’d never touched a chicken before, much less owned a chicken as a pet.
“People have never touched a chicken before and they think she is so amazing,” said Cox. “They would ask for a picture with her and then say, ‘I’m so posting this on Instagram — what’s her Instagram account so I can tag you?'”
Cox never thought about starting an online platform for Sammi, but after seeing how interested people were with his new pet, he decided to make an Instagram page documenting their travels.
Initially, the Instagram account Cox made for Sammi had around 200 followers. After they went viral, many new people started following Sammi and her adventures with her owner, gaining the Instagram account thousands of followers.
Cox said the newly acclaimed fame wouldn’t hinder them from traveling, and neither would it bother Sammi, either. She’s still very loyal to her owner.
When talking about Sammi, Cox said that chickens are very different from dogs.
“A dog will greet you, lick your face and jump up on you,” Cox said. “Chickens are not like that, but Sammi and I have a bond. She knows my voice and she recognizes my face and she knows me.”
Despite the vast differences between the two animals, Cox said he and Sammi have become close.
“She’s my companion. We’ve bonded and — with a lot of patience and remembering her brain is the size of a pea on my part — we have learned a lot about each other.”
Sammi’s presence on social media doesn’t just extend to Instagram — Cox also made a YouTube channel for Sammi. And for Cox, who stumbled across fame by chance from an out-of-the-ordinary pet, has been encouraged to share more about Sammi. The YouTube channel has been a work in progress, according to Cox, but now it has a large number of Sammi-related videos posted.
“I never knew that having a pet chicken as a companion would create the amount of attention and intrigue that it has,” Cox said.
