Frog the rooster waits for his owner to get home from school every weekday and greets her at the bus stop Kelli Bender is the Pets Editor at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2013.

I knew what needed to be done. I didn’t want to, and I had no idea how to. We had to butcher an aggressive rooster. Neither myself, nor my husband, had ever butchered a rooster or chicken before.