The dogs name was patty. The cows were only playing their version of hide and seek...cowhide.
Milk cows are strange beasts. As a teenager I helped out on a farm and was requested to open a gate to a pasture so the cows could head for the barn for the evening milking.
All went well until one cow charged me, I climbed over a stone wall and climbed a small tree scared to death of her. There I was hanging on for dear life yelling for help when the farmers wife ran out to save me.
She called to her husband and they got a rope around the crazy cow to get it in the barn. WTF, was going on, I was not allowed into the barn but I could hear the farmer yelling for a block and tackle.
All kinds of yelling from people and some really loud noises from the poor cow. Seems she was in labor with twins and they were stuck, that meant the baby's had to be pulled out the hard way.
I could catch bits and pieces of what the people inside were saying so I was aware the cow had twins, after an hour or so I was allowed into the barn to see the new Mom and baby-----just one girl cow.
Then came a bit of education I would never have gotten other wise. Tradition, Fact or Superstition, the twin the healthiest and biggest if a female allowed to live, the other smaller baby was put down unless the bigger calve was a male.
Strange as it seemed to me at the time, the old time Yankees believed that if both were allowed to live, the mother would take longer to get off the calves and produce milk for humans. Both baby's would not grow as fast as mother would have a hard time keeping up with the baby's constant needs.
Jump ahead to 30 years later and living on in-laws property in Tenn. They had 4 milk cows, one was pregnant. We all had jobs in town and came home to find only 3 cows at the barn. We went out looking and found the no.4 cow had died in childbirth in the field.
Father in law got the tractor and hauled the cow off into the woods and left it to feed the wild critters. About a year later we found her bones and I , to every ones disgust brought home the skull.
Filled a bucket of water and bleach and let it soak for a couple of weeks and let it dry out in the sun. These cows had not been poled so they had their Horne's Since 86 I have had her skull that I sealed and painted hanging on a wall in all places I have lived, I had no idea how valuable these darn things are until I went to a Indian POW WOW and saw the same thing I have at home painted up and selling for $80.00 each painted with tribal signs.
FYI When a cow steps on a foot they do pick up their hoof, they slide off, crushing all the foot bones underneath .
It comes to me that these cows that attacked this woman had been left wild, had no socialisation with humans, they took her as a threat as to them she meant danger as a wolf or bear would mean.
