No photos, sorry, so you'll have to use your imagination.
Our pastor and his wife dropped in for a visit the other day. We're always happy to see them, and their two-year-old son "G" is a joy to be around.
But, being a toddler, G got restless with all the adult conversation, so after a while Mrs. Pastor and I took him outside to show him the cows. We figured he'd be fascinated by the bovines since he's never seen any such animals up close before.
I forgot to consider, however, that the cows had never seen a baby human up close before, either.
I mean seriously, none of them had ever seen a child, much less a toddler. They stared at G, enraptured.
I hitched G up on to my hip and carried him through the gate to where all three animals were staring at him intensely. G was quiet and very well-behaved, but it made no difference to the cows. If we tried walking up to one of them, they dodged away.
Even our steer, Romeo, backed up stiff-legged when I tried to get G close enough to pet him. Maggie scooted away when we got too close. These are animals, you understand, who are always up for a pat on the rump or a scratch on the chin. Not this time.
Watch out for those baby humans. They can be scary, apparently.
As it turned out, G was far more fascinated by the tractor rather than the cows. He climbed right up into the seat and spent the next twenty minutes vroom-vrooming over the steering wheel. He's all boy, that kid.
Are cows generally friendly to humans they don't know? Usually animals love me and come up for scritches, but cows don't.
ReplyDeleteNormally they can be stand-offish with strangers; but with little G, they were positively spooked. Weird but funny.
Delete- Patrice
Years ago, my friend brought her 18 month old son over. My beagle had never seen a toddler before, so kind of stared rudely. Milo (the toddler) pulled himself on the sofa where the dog was relaxing, checked out his private area, grabbed it and yelled "ALFIE IS A BOY!" Poor Alfie had the long suffering beagle look. Fortunately beagles are fantastic with kids and put up with all kinds of manhandling.
DeleteOuch. Poor Alfie.
Delete- Patrice
Having grown up around cattle for the first 18 years of my life, I'm not at all surprised by what you describe. Cows, intelligent as we might think they are, are still cows. They didn't recognize you — they saw an unfamiliar creature (you and little G as one person) they'd never encountered before and reacted with natural caution, if not outright fear.
ReplyDeleteWe have Llamas and they will get spooked easily however when little ones come around they are absolutely mesmerized, the smaller the more interesting. When we first got them they were quite standoffish, but while holding my neighbors tot they had to get a closer look. When I can get them on a halter kids can pet and feel the soft fur/fleece. I thought of it as the same when humans see a puppy or a kitten and can't help ourselves but to coo and so forth. Your cows may have also seen the baby as something that has a mother waiting for the attack if they get too close.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up, we had a toy poodle that was quite the seven-pound trooper.
ReplyDeleteHe wasn't tall enough to see over the field grass at my Granddad's farm, so he would run a few feet, hop into the air to get his bearings, run a few more feet, etc.
Heh, Granddad's cattle wanted NOTHING to do with this tiny little menace.