Miniature Jumping Cow Pony on Border Patrol

As reported in blog posts from years past, the neighbor's cattle frequenting our pasture in the wintertime has become an annual occurrence here.  The marsh freezes, cattails fold over the barbed wire fence, and the cows just step right over on the frozen water and come on by.  This evening Owen declared he was going out to send them home because they were eating my large round bales of really nice quality horse hay.  For reference, because cows have several stomachs and are ruminants, they can eat almost any kind of forage and gain weight.  Horses, with one stomach and a delicate digestive system need very high quality (translate: expensive) grass hay, especially the thoroughbreds whose metabolisms run fast anyway.  So I was MAD that these cows were basically eating all my lunch money.

The three horses living in the pens by the big bale were not concerned, they stood quietly discussing the cuisine with the cows as though they had invited the cattle over for a little dinner party.  Cecil, however, was frantic.  He was prancing around his pen which is further away from the cows, and snorting as loudly as possible, in a fit from his bovinaphobia.  Garmin, who lives with Cecil, just watched observantly.

Owen released the border collies from the barn.  Belle immediately bullet-ed out to the hay stack to move the cattle back.  Miles, a little less focused, came over to say hello to me and then went to join Belle.  They succeeded in moving the cows to the far west corner of the pasture.

In an unprecedented act, the younger cows, about a year old, decided there was no reason to move away from a dog.  After all, a cow weighs hundreds of pounds and the dog only about fifty.  Approximately three of these cows turned around and charged Belle.  She was astonished, this retaliation was totally unanticipated!  Keep in mind that Belle grew up in a small back yard in the town of Loveland on a cement pad with chain link fence.  She had never seen livestock until she arrived here as a 6 year old, and discovered her affinity for herding.  She tried valiantly to get them back on course, but despite her best efforts they stared her down and chased her halfway back to the barn.  One dog down.

Miles, meanwhile had discovered that I was wielding at long whip in order to make noise and move the cows back to their property.  Miles and the whip have a gleeful history together.  When Miles was a puppy, a friend and her 5 year old daughter house sat for us.  The daughter, a budding animal trainer herself, taught Miles a game she called Hup-dog.  She would tie a string of baling twine to the end of a long stick, then wave it in the air, spinning around and shouting "hup-dog!".  This action would quickly provoke Miles into giddy ecstasy causing him to launch himself into the air to snap at the string.  My friend's child has long since forgotten this game, but Miles has not.  Any time a whip comes out he is there, ready to pounce.  No matter if I'm working a young horse or trying to move cattle from on foot, he is there to help.  He never would even consider going after the animals with aggression, just the whip in his game of Hup-dog. The attraction of the whip quickly turned Miles from determined border collie on cattle alert into goofy puppy playing Hup-dog.  So that was two dogs down. 

When I looked back to see where Owen was in terms of back-up, he was standing right next to the horse's paddock, jaw dropped in awe as he watched Garmin the pony rear back onto his hind legs, and leap over the fence from a stand-still.  He jumped out of his own paddock, and then jumped INTO the pasture with all of us.  Garmin had a literal good roll in the strewn about hay, then began to run around determining the next maneuver for cattle escorting.  We may have been down two dogs, but we had gained a miniature jumping cow pony on border patrol.  The only thing missing was a bright cape and jumpsuit with an "S" on it.

Over the course of the next half hour our little team succeeded in replacing the cattle back in their own pasture beyond the marsh and doing a temporary fix on the perimeter fence line.  The only casualties were two pairs of wet shoes (though Kim got high boots for Christmas so no wet socks at least), Belle is still a little shook up about being charged by a bovine, but Miles is blissfully oblivious to the certain danger they faced.  Garmin followed me back to his pen, where I am planning to raise the fence height (this is the fourth time he has jumped out for various reasons best known to him).  The horses settled down to continue their supper, sans cattle.  We'll see who is invited to the dinner party tomorrow night.