Cows

Early hours of the morning. A field illuminated by a moon and wreathed in a ghostly mist.

I had taken the dogs here to give them a run and somewhere different for them to have a sniff about - but I had my eye open for cows. Dogs are welcome in the field when cows are around, so long as they don't bother the beasts.

Its been a while since my pair have met a cow - the last time over a year ago. The herd of cows they met then rather surprisingly intimidated them, and I ended up with both mutts between my legs, trembling and growling in turn. Eventually there was some mutual sniffing - the sight of a cow and dog nose to nose sniffing is something I'll always remember, before I took them off and away. Cows are inordinately curious however, and they ended up following us all around the field.

Back to the night.

Sure enough half way through the field, a snapping and shifting revealed the presence of cows. Curiousity getting the better of them they started walking our way. Both my mutts prickled - the boy growling and moving towards the large shadows, the girl just watching intently.

Not wanting a bout of post midnight barking - it seemed like the boy might launch into it - I shushed them away. Cows being cows, they followed us - but not quickly enough and they lost our trail. Unfortunately I couldn't give the dogs a run as I didn't want them running around like lunatics with the cows, so we made do with a lead walk, but they seemed fine, noses to the floor intently sniffing everything.

On our way to the exit I retraced out steps to see if I could see the cows out in the open, and possibly have a controlled encounter, but they had disappeared. The mutts prickled at something unseen, perhaps it was the cows, but I could see nothing and decided to call it a night and head home.