That got scary quickly.....

So, only a couple of days ago I reported that a big red fox that had been regularly spotted at my place or nearby had suddenly died. Yesterday, I was taking the dogs for an afternoon walk and a new fox showed up. Usually its me who is the spotter, and then I go mad trying to get my dogs to see what I can see without setting off an alert. But this time we were walking towards the Far Paddock, when Fry suddenly bolted past me.

There's a certain all-or-nothing sprint Fry does when he's on hot pursuit. (It doesn't always work out well, he's pulled a muscle sprinting.) Fry flashed past, and a few seconds later Kobbie followed after him. Looking up ahead I saw a new, different fox creeping diagonally across the paddock. Fry had spotted him, but the Fox didn't see him coming. With 10 metres to spare the Fox suddenly jolted into the air, spun in a circle and bolted back the way it had come. It ran to the corner, squeezed through the mesh fence and was gone, with Fry snapping at the air seconds later. A few seconds after that Kobbie showed up and the two of them ran up and down the fenceline woofing heartily.

Normally that would be fine, but on this day my cows were also in the paddock, in the opposite corner. Most the time the cows are pretty placid, but there's a few things they don't like. One of them is dogs in general. Day to day they ignore the dogs, but they don't like them to make a fuss. The dogs know the rules and most the time they can walk past each other and no one says anything.

The other thing they don't like is small animals. A baby lamb and a pig have both been kicked or stomped by a cow for just being there.

The dogs, chasing a fox, was more impertinence than the cows were willing to put up with. They grouped, then two came forward, alert, stiff, tails and ears up in the air and strutted forward. I could see what they were doing, and Fry did too, and he sprinted back to me in a wide arc, curving around the advancing front of the cows as they moved to capture the middle ground. But Kobbie, clueless in these sort of matters, slowly ambled back, and as Fry zoomed past the cows they moved further forward. Suddenly Kobbie was cut off, in the diminishing corner, with the cows wedging him in. He started to run between the cow and the fence, but the cow stepped sideways and blocked him, and kept moving forwards.

Kobbie can be fast when he needs to be and could probably outrun a cow in a short sprint, but this was turning into an obstacle course with more than one cow involved, and I could see he was getting trapped.

Fry was told to stay. I could have used his help...he's been known to push a cow back, not always when its needed...but I was worried he might just inflame the situation.

I went into the paddock and flushed the cows out of my path. Unhappy about it, but that's what I did. The cows moved aside and left a clear line between me and Kobbie, and I called him to me. He started towards me, then to my fury stopped to smell something, and the dynamic shifted again, with the cows again moving towards him.

Stage Two of pushing cows, arms out and hat off, loud voice. The steer baulked, snorting and bouncing on his front feet. I reached where Kobbie was, and Kobbie, sensing my anger....rolled on his back and played the victim. Suddenly he felt 5 kilos heavier as I hoiked him under my arm and walked out, shooing the cows who flounced and grumbled at us, then followed threateningly behind me to the gate, as if to make sure we were going.

I walked ten metres and put him down, Fry joined us. "Come on, you idiots", I muttered and we headed home. Except, when I looked back a few seconds later, the two dogs were sitting facing the cows who had regrouped immediately on the other side of the fence. I lost my temper then and bellowed at the dogs, and they belatedly followed after me.

They kept their distance all the way home. Obviously I was in a bad mood and best to be avoided.