Cows killed another poor dog walker

[Pippetypoppity]

I’ve just seen on the BBC news that a lady has been killed in a field by cows. She was walking her chihuahua. This is absolutely tragic. She possibly ran with dog and was chased. That would be my guess as the same happened to me on our farm when I was very young. Your instinct is to save your dog and run. I remember I had a sheep dog puppy in my arms and I’d gone into the field to play. I was about 6 I think. The cows noticed the puppy from quite a distance away and the whole herd started moving in. Luckily I was close enough to the gate to get out, but it was terrifying. I remember my father on the yard yelling ‘Drop the puppy’ at the top of his lungs. I didn’t but I’d have been a gonner if I was another 50 yards in. I just want to tell everyone what my father said to me that day. It’s stuck in my mind ever since and it’s important anyone who dog walks in the country knows it too

1. If you see cows with calves leave the field by the nearest exit immediately. Cows often charge to protect their young
2. If you see cows without calves and they start moving quickly towards you they are being inquisitive. If you have a dog with you the cows will want to know if it is a threat. They see dogs instinctively as predators. If you cannot get to a gate and they are approaching- startle them by shouting jumping, waving your arms and making yourself appear as loud, big and threatening as possible. This will frighten them and make them stop or bypass you.
3. If they persevere it will be because they want to force your dog out of the field. Let the dog go! This is critical. Your dog can run faster than cows and much much faster than you. The cows will then focus on the dog and you can get away.
4. Never ever pick up the dog if cows are refusing to back off. This is the hardest thing in the world to do as all your instincts will compel you to try and protect it. It stands a better chance running and dodging them however than it does in your arms. You will then avoid becoming a target yourself and being trampled.
5. When cows move quickly in a large group the ones at the front get pushed by the ones at the back even if they themselves try to slow down. They will not be trying to mow you down but the sheer force from behind might mean they do. For this reason if cows approach in a group and your initial efforts to threaten and scare them failed, make that momentum go in a different direction ie after your dog.

I am so so dreadfully sorry to hear that this has happened again. The lady in question was inevitably a devoted extremely responsible and loving pet owner. She must have been to have been giving her chihuahua a country walk. I expect for this very reason she picked her dog up when she saw the cows getting near. Poor poor lady.

As I said upthread. Sometimes you are in a publicised walking route and come across one field on the route with cows. How would you k so when you set off? I’ve done a local route loads of times and not seen a cow and then the next time, they are there.

And you dont think that farmers grow cauliflowers ?

Yeah why don’t they just leave half their fields unused? Sounds sensible 😂

I’m not a farmer, don’t have any farmer friends, and regularly go for long walks in the countryside. But I appreciate that farmers need to farm!

Some breeds of cows are less aggressive. Surely these are the ones that should be put in fields with public footpaths in them.
Public footpaths go back centuries.

Sorry this was meant to be a quote tweet but my dinner (incidentally 🥩) is ready. Will find it later!

Of course it's tragic that the woman died. As has been said though, hopefully this will be a lesson learned for people who happily roam through fields with livestock/farm animals in them - with their dogs off the lead.

Best way to not get killed by a herd of cows, is to keep your dog on a lead, and don't go into fields full of cows. (Or any farm animals!) Some cows are pregnant right now, and your dog could scare them, and they could miscarry. Also, as has been illustrated here, the cows could attack/charge at you, to protect themselves and their unborn calves.

The chances of roaming through fields and just randomly getting trapped and having to walk through a field full of cows (as someone suggested,) is vanishingly small. I live in the countryside, (surrounded by farmland,) and know this is very unlikely to happen.

What if you're 7 miles in to an 8 mile circular walk? I'd take the footpath but would let the dog off as per the OP

I know! How dare these farmers think about their own farm and livelihood and not how they can spend their income on making non essential walks better for the public?! How very rude!!

You can tell a lot about a farmer from how they keep their public footpaths. And yes, it's obvious that some are nice. Lots of those little yellow arrows on every gateposts, paths nicely strimmed....those are generally the farms that are well kept up.

Threatening or nonexistent signage often goes hand in hand with bad animal welfare, dilapidated buildings- and the aforementioned leaking slurry pit 🤔

You might have the “right” but your comment perfectly demonstrates the sheer stupidity of the general public.

Great advice, thanks for sharing in such an informative manner

I walk a lot and often walk near cows, I try and stick to the edge of the field so I can jump the fence if needed. I would never walk through the middle of a field where there are cows with calves. One of the places I walk has a sign up warming dog walkers to keep their dogs on leads around the cows, it also states if the cows approach then let the dog off the lead and save yourself 😬. People need to have more common sense and not walk their dog through a field of cows.

You are right to pick me up on that. What I should have said is "Canada is very young as a settler colonial state" (as is the US, Australia, and Israel).

The indigenous people have of course lived there for thousands of years.

And in terms of laws, common law (ie. British, which was exported across the Empire).

The island of Britain you can fit inside New York state. Ireland meanwhile is 300 miles from top to bottom. We are not blessed with much room in these islands, and when society was largely rural these paths were imperative to move around.

But national parks are public property in Canada. They are made up of privately-owned land in the UK. Land that was originally held in common (hence the public footpaths), and then were later enclosed (taken into private ownership) but the rights of way across the land remained in place.

(national parks were created centuries later, and are really more of a planning designation than anything else - our local national park includes a couple of major towns).

Livestock often take their cue from the stockperson. Calm stockperson, calm livestock unless you introduce a variable like calves or dogs. However all have the possibility of being unpredictable even the calm breeds.

I've seen sheep round on a dog and beat 7 bells out of them, sheep can be way more dangerous than cows because people treat them like they are just woolly idiots, they aren't and they can weigh as much as a full grown adult human.

That’s really interesting. The cows that chased ds weren’t being aggressive, I don’t think. They were youngsters, clearly excited by ds running and decided to gallop down the hill with him. There’s a field behind our house that has young cows in it right now, and they’re super friendly and curious. They amble up to us for a sniff and a lick. They’re clearly very used to people, and like them. Popular spot for walkers though, and the cow presence is signposted and notified on local FB and WhatsApp groups so that dog walkers can be careful.

My grandparents were dairy farmers and having heard their stories I have aways had a healthy fear of a herd of cows.

Walking the dog one day with my 3 year old and 5 year old. I noticed there were cows in the ajoining field. We were returning from our walk when I noticed the cows were running in this adjoining field in the same direction we were going. What I did not know was that there was a gate between the two fields that was open. I realised this when the cows ran through this gate and started heading towards us. Luckily the fields were separated by a mixture of thick hedge but with some areas of just barbed wire and we were by one of the sections of barbed wire. I managed to release the dog from the lead and get both young children to navigate the ditch and barbed wire just as the first cow reached us.

My daughter was screaming as she thought she was about to see her much loved dog trampled. Unfortunately some stragglers from the herd remained in the field we had just escaped to! I looked around for a large stick and told the children we had to walk calmly out the field knowing the stragglers could still charge us or the remaining herd could still retrace their steps. It is so difficult to walk when all your instincts are telling you to get out of the situation as quickly as possible.

My daughter now has a strong cow phobia. I have no doubt we were in real danger and I would never knowingly gone into a field of cows. I just didn't know the fields were interlinked!

Weird comment. Most people walking through rural public footpaths will be local.

I think it's some new vegetarians and flexitarians mainly using those products. I only very rarely do.

True @Drinkdrinkduuurink and thanks for being gracious about my hectoring!

Is this really the law? I've seen so many paths that just go through the field that it doesn't seem true to me.

As a farmer's daughter I totally agree with everything PPs say. We had people bedding down in our barns wrecking the bales of hay & straw, once setting a barn alight as they decided to light a barbeque - cost my father £thousands, we had people camping in our fields without permission shitting in the field & then knocking on our door to complain when stung by electric fences, stuff dumped in fields (talking, sofas, fridges, hard core porn etc etc). Not to mention people's dogs chasing & killing our livestock. Makes me mad how some people treat the countryside.

Because I live in the depths of the countryside and see only too well what industrial farming is doing to our landscapes and biodiversity.

No industry (and believe you me, farming is definitely an industry) should be above criticism. Nobody says we shouldn't criticise the water companies who are filling are rivers with shit because without them we'd go thirsty, do they?

(And that's actually a neater analogy than I intended because farmers are also filling our rivers with shit. A lot of watercourse pollution is in fact agricultural runoff. From cows, among other things.)

Ireland meanwhile is 300 miles from top to bottom. We are not blessed with much room in these islands, and when society was largely rural these paths were imperative to move around.
I wonder if they have footpaths through land in NI?

We do a fair amount of off road walking. We live in a mainly dairy farming area. It is nigh on impossible to go for a walk anywhere without encountering a field of cows. The cows are not always in the same fields on each farm. Farmers move them around, obviously. So you might cross 3 fields of no cows then come across the cows in field 4. It's not as simple as just turning around and going back. The next time you walk the same route, there may be no cows or the cows might be in field 1. It's just impossible to know in advance where they will be.