The Trouble With Chickens: A J.J. Tully Mystery is a children’s chapter book by American author Doreen Cronin. Jonathan Joseph Tully, or J.J. for short, is a former rescue dog bored by his retired life in the countryside. J.J. reluctantly agrees to help his neighbor Moosh, a strange but caring chicken, find her missing chicks, Poppy and Sweeties. J.J. follows the clues and discovers that the inside dog, Vince, has taken the chicks. J.J. has to rely on his smarts and his fledgling friendship with the chicken family to overcome Vince’s terrible plans and save the chicks—and himself. The novel explores themes of Friendship and Betrayal, Purpose and Belonging, The Value of Teamwork, and Approaches to Problem-Solving.

This guide refers to the 2011 Kindle edition of this book.

Plot Summary

In Chapter 1, J.J. Tully remembers the hot summer day when he first met his neighbor, Millicent the chicken, whom he calls Moosh. He thinks she is a tough but crazy bird. In Chapter 2, J.J. explains that his full name is Jonathan Joseph Tully and that he used to work as a search-and-rescue dog before he had to retire to the countryside. Moosh wants J.J.’s help with a problem and promises to pay him with a cheeseburger.

In Chapter 3, one of Moosh’s chicks, Sugar, reveals their family’s problem: Two of the chicks, Poppy and Sweetie, have gone missing. In Chapter 4, J.J. begins to look for the chicks by following a scent from their chicken coop. However, when it begins to rain, he calls off the search and returns to his doghouse. In Chapter 5, the chicks, Dirt and Sugar, pester J.J. to continue to search, and Moosh discovers a mysterious ransom note at the chicken coop that demands a meeting that evening.

In Chapter 6, J.J. persuades Moosh to give him the note and identifies a strong scent on it. In Chapter 7, he guesses that an inside pet wrote the note because of the fancy language. In Chapter 8, J.J. and Moosh prepare for their evening rendezvous with the note’s author, but J.J. decides to hide close to the coop to keep watch. The same scent he has been tracking suddenly overwhelms him, and he notices the dog, Vince the Funnel, appear in the house’s window.

In Chapter 9, J.J. explains that Vince is an inside dog that Barb recently brought home. J.J. nicknames him “the funnel” because he wears a medical cone. Moosh runs around the yard in a panic, yelling that Vince has her chicks. In Chapter 10, Vince watches J.J. through the window, thinking about how much he hates him and how his plan to kidnap the chicks is unfolding perfectly.

In Chapter 11, J.J. realizes that the ransom note was a set-up and tells Moosh that he will act once he has more information. In Chapter 12, J.J. peeks into the house, and a vicious Vince meets him, but when he returns to the chickens, he discovers that Sugar is now missing, too. He receives another note in which someone threatens to kidnap the last chick, Dirt.

In Chapters 13 and 14, J.J. trains Dirt to go inside the house and look for her siblings. However, he loses Moosh in the process, who runs into the house by herself to find Sugar, Poppy, and Sweetie. In Chapters 15 and 16, J.J. and Dirt go into the house to rescue all the chickens, but J.J. loses control and runs into a wall, losing consciousness. Vince is thrilled that he has successfully captured all the chickens and his nemesis, J.J.

In Chapters 17 and 18, J.J. wakes up locked in the dog crate in the kitchen. He learns that Vince plans to make him take his place for an ear tube surgery. J.J. learns that some of the chicks worked with Vince and is angry with them for this betrayal. When Sugar talks to J.J., he realizes that she must be the author of the ransom notes since she uses the same unusual, fancy vocabulary.

In Chapter 19, Sugar admits that she did collude with Vince and write the ransom notes, but not because she wanted to hurt her siblings. Sugar tells J.J. that Vince promised to let her take books from the house library if she helped him lure J.J. into the house. However, when Vince comes to mock J.J., he reveals his ultimate plan of killing the chickens, and Sugar faints in shock.

In Chapter 20, the chicken family realizes that they are now locked in the house, and Vince plans to hurt them. They quickly strategize with J.J. and make a rescue plan. In Chapter 22, the chickens and J.J. collaborate to steal the doggy door tag off Vince’s collar and free J.J. from the crate while forcing Vince into it. With Vince locked away in the crate, J.J. and the chickens are free from danger.

In Chapter 22, J.J. makes sense of the whole story, learning that the chicks liked visiting the house because of the TV and books and had grown to trust Vince through their visits. Moosh admits that she suspected Sugar might have something to do with the kidnapping mystery but that she was in a panic about her missing chicks. J.J. forgives her for not being honest with him. In the final chapter, Moosh admits she cannot pay J.J. a cheeseburger as promised, but he doesn’t mind. J.J. and the chicken family relax on the couch together, enjoying each other’s company. The Epilogue reveals that J.J.’s friendship with the chicks continues, and they like to visit him and hear his rescue stories. Vince, meanwhile, has had his surgery and still lives inside the house wearing a very large medical cone.