cattle dog who is afraid of cattle
My mother's new place is across from a pasture. When I visited her last weekend for Christmas, there were about twenty-five or thirty head of cattle on the pasture. Zailey (the blue healer, aka Australian cattle dog) went nuts whenever she saw the cattle.
My mother's place has a dense forest on one side of her property and a creek with trees and shrubs making up two other boundaries. With such natural deterrents preventing the dogs from running away, we usually let them roam free when nature called. Unfortunately, the road was wide open and the pasture's fence wasn't much of an obstacle.
Several times, Zailey ran for the pasture. She would get out there and bark at the cattle, but not get too close. Apparently her herding instinct wasn't kicking in because several times the cattle decided to rush Zailey. Usually it was a group of about five or ten that would get together and make a run towards the dog. The dog was ten times faster, so would easily run away. But it went to show that the cattle dog was afraid of cattle.
Of course, if a few cattle ran after me, I'd be running away too. I'm also not as fast as Zailey, so that would add to my motivation to run. Milo, it seemed, would run out into the pasture after Zailey wondering what all of the commotion was. He didn't really care that there were a bunch of other animals around. He just excited by Zailey's excitement. He would run out to her, then run back to me. He would do this several times before giving into my calls to take the treat I offered so that I could snatch him up and take him inside. Zailey would ignore me and the treat in favor of the cattle, but when I snatched up Milo, she seemed more willing to leave the pasture.
Now we are all back home and I have yet to return to work. Well, I should say, I have yet to return to my real job. I've been working on getting the vehicles all serviced, some house work, and working on a few writing projects. I need some time to relax, but I've got too much stuff to do like making sure to blog!
Well now I know that if I ever become a rancher, Zailey and Milo won't be able to work the cattle. I'm sure the peaceful setting of said ranch would allow me to get a ton of work done like what I plan to get done this week. Wish me luck!
My mother's place has a dense forest on one side of her property and a creek with trees and shrubs making up two other boundaries. With such natural deterrents preventing the dogs from running away, we usually let them roam free when nature called. Unfortunately, the road was wide open and the pasture's fence wasn't much of an obstacle.
Several times, Zailey ran for the pasture. She would get out there and bark at the cattle, but not get too close. Apparently her herding instinct wasn't kicking in because several times the cattle decided to rush Zailey. Usually it was a group of about five or ten that would get together and make a run towards the dog. The dog was ten times faster, so would easily run away. But it went to show that the cattle dog was afraid of cattle.
Of course, if a few cattle ran after me, I'd be running away too. I'm also not as fast as Zailey, so that would add to my motivation to run. Milo, it seemed, would run out into the pasture after Zailey wondering what all of the commotion was. He didn't really care that there were a bunch of other animals around. He just excited by Zailey's excitement. He would run out to her, then run back to me. He would do this several times before giving into my calls to take the treat I offered so that I could snatch him up and take him inside. Zailey would ignore me and the treat in favor of the cattle, but when I snatched up Milo, she seemed more willing to leave the pasture.
Now we are all back home and I have yet to return to work. Well, I should say, I have yet to return to my real job. I've been working on getting the vehicles all serviced, some house work, and working on a few writing projects. I need some time to relax, but I've got too much stuff to do like making sure to blog!
Well now I know that if I ever become a rancher, Zailey and Milo won't be able to work the cattle. I'm sure the peaceful setting of said ranch would allow me to get a ton of work done like what I plan to get done this week. Wish me luck!
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