Cows, farmers, & other predators... Nurhan

Nurhan's take:

Yesterday the weather seemed to have broken, so it was off to the beach for evening walk... Which has nothing to do with this post, but I'm going to mix in the pictures of Kin, Tina, & her mum (who's name escapes me, can't get Tina on the phone... so for the rest of this post she'll be referred to as TM).


Last night I went to bed with an okay blood sugar, and at 0300ish woke up with a very low blood sugar (I'm an insulin dependant diabetic). This is a really irritating situation, for several reasons, one of which is that since hitting 30, I seem incapable of eating the correct amount to cancel it out without sending my BS way too high (oh and not to mention that there was no obvious reason why it went so low as the 'before sleep BS' was fine). I eat, then try to go back to bed, but I am crap if my sleep is interrupted, as I don't really sleep for several hours; so it feels like my eyelids have just shut when the alarm clock rings. Added to this I am still trying to hit the balance with working regular days and taking care of Kin. End result that after cycling home from work today in the strong winds, rain, and 7 deg C (despite my having worn sandals and shorts... in an outrageously optimistic leap of faith that yr had really predicted the correct weather), I was rather knackered.


Kin meanwhile was doing high speed laps around the garden. 

{random photo... nothing to do with text...}


So obviously I had to take him out (unfortunately previous walks do not have a cumulative affect...}. Legs running a distinctly part time service & off we went...


Now part of the walk goes past a large field full of cows and sheep. There is some land separating the path, from the field and failing that there is a wire mesh fence topped with barbed wire.

And off Kin went... somehow he managed to get through the fence. Sheep & lambs start running and the cows look up. I ignore the protest from my legs and go after him. Now Karma I could run faster, I haven't worked out yet who is faster between Kin & I but he's defiantly faster than Karma. In wet long grass in terrain, with me with complaining legs he had an edge and he was ignoring my commands, as he was fixed on the live stock. He was only curious, & being a puppy he wanted to play.

 I'll freely admit that I was in the wrong here...


Now in Norway farmers have carte blanch to shoot dogs that are worrying livestock. Farmers here take that to extremes, with many incidents of farmers shooting dogs nowhere near live stock. A notable case was a farmer shooting a highly trained tracking dog, nowhere near any livestock, whilst the dog and the owner were training; the only comeback... the paper said how terrible it was. If the local farmer wanted to be bloody minded about it, he could have shot Kin  perfectly legally.


I managed to grab Kin. I picked him off the ground by the scruff of his neck and laid him down. I was angry, but I was trying to give a measured response.


We were not out of peril yet. Now cows are curious creatures... but they spook easily, especially with dogs. Every year dogs are trampled to death by spooked cows, who will go after a dog that spooks them. If the owner is there as well then the owner is collateral damage. All the cows were coming towards us.


Kin and I got to the fence as the cows came to ~ 50 m away. I picked Kin up (wet he's probably ~ 50 kgs now} and not taking any great care with where limbs were, I manage to pass him through a barbed wire fence, before quickly following him, just as the cows were breathing down my neck.

Sat on a rock with a subdued Kin sitting beside me, until my pulse came back down into triple figures. Then tied him to a tree, before going back down to ensure that we had not damaged the fence (folk ski on this hill in the winter and some sections of the fence have been damaged by lots of folk not being too careful when going through it).


Kin definitely knows something was up, and I wasn't very happy. I'm hoping he's linked the event of chasing livestock with this but probably not. Will have to be much more careful with him until, he like Karma before him, can transit past this field with only a quick look before getting his nose back to the ground and carrying on, on the walk.

Tina & Kin.

TM & Kin.