An Encounter With Bullocks

[bunn]

I took the dogs out for their morning walk as usual, across some fields that are normally empty, give or take the odd deer or rabbit. In the distance I saw Az having a good roll on his back. Nothing odd there, he really enjoys rolling in grass. Then he came dancing back a bit closer again, and PHEW! He had found a cowflop and had absolutely coated himself in it.

"Oh, Az!" I exclaimed and we wandered onwards, me thinking 'it's the hose for you, my lad'. I did not think, as I should have done 'Hang on, where did that cowflop come from, there are no cows here?' I was obviously in a particularly dozy mood, as even when we passed a place where the hedge had clearly been bashed down, my alarm sensors totally failed to go off.

So, three fields in, I was totally taken aback by the marauding herd of bullocks that came storming over to see what we were up to. Now, I don't mind bullocks too much: they are a bit pushy, but a loud cry of 'YAH! and waving of the arms will stop them treading on your feet or knocking you over. But they don't like dogs at all, and my dogs are not so used to cows that they won't panic if a bunch of bullocks start trying to chase them. Which they did.

I decided to leave the dogs offlead - they are much faster than me, so that was safer for all of us, as the bullocks were scared of me, slow as I am, but were trying to stomp the dogs. Az sensibly stayed behind me and fairly close, so that I could keep the bullocks away from him with cries of YAH! while we headed for the gate.

But poor Mollydog lost it entirely and shot off in completely the wrong direction, closely pursued by a couple of bullocks. There was no point me running after them, as then I'd have exposed Az to the rest of the herd, and OK, he is quick, but there were an awful lot of hooves there. So we shot out through the gate, then rushed back and round through the next field to save poor Mollydog. Luckily the bullocks had not chased her very far, but she was still very pleased to see us!

After this rather traumatic experience, I still had to wash Az when we got home. In fact, I had to wash him twice, as I was unable to get all the muck off under the hose, so once he was more or less clean enough to walk through the house, I had to give him a shower as well. He was not a happy dog.

Comments

[chainmailmaiden]

That sounds altogether rather too exciting! Hope everyone is recovered from it by now. Poor Az, 2 washes in one day!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

His little face when I bundled him into the shower was a picture. He hates getting wet.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Eek! Scary. I don't do cows. Even the placid ones look at you in a way that shows that they are plotting how to turn you into mush under their big stompy feet. Next time, I'll have to try the YAH! approach. The EEEK! approach doesn't work. It just whets their blood thirst.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I can entirely see why you would be scared of cows. Cows are quite dangerous and they do kill people surprisingly often*. I think that if you do have to get close to them, the bold approach is probably safer. They are brought up to do what we say, after all.

[skordh.livejournal.com]

Whoa! So much for my knowledge of natural history. I would have thought that if anyone was going to do the chasing there it would have been dogs chasing cows. My only encounters with herds of bullocks have been very mild compared with this! I hope Molly & Az can laugh at it in retrospect...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

If I had a very assertive herding dog like a corgi or a collie, it might have gone the other way, but generally bullocks are a match for most dogs, and quite dangerous to them. You get the same thing with horses sometimes. If the dog can get the horse running, he'll chase it, but a lot of the time a bold horse will get in first and start chasing the dog.

There was someone killed last year who walked their dachshund through a field of cows, with the dog on the lead: the cows moved in to try to kill the dog, the owner tried to protect the dog and got squished as well. This is why I let my two off!

[chris-maslen.livejournal.com]

Nope, cows/bullocks definitely = evil.

I distinctly remember a cross country walk with Taruithorn which involved walking through a field with a herd of cows in it... they followed us to the stile and slowly closed in on us every time we turned our backs on them, very creepy.