My Dog is Determined to Die a Traumatic Death...

Or at the very least have me die of a heart attack....

I'm sure all of you remember our harrowing experience last Thanksgiving. If you feel compelled to refresh your memory, you can click here to read the entire drawn out ordeal of mental anguish and suffering she caused me...

On Monday morning, Bookworm and I decided to go for a ride. My dad asked if we would mind riding through the cattle near his house. Our goal was to count 86 grown and 76 calves...

We headed off to do our duty, and of course Kelsey decided to accompany us. I told her to go home, but really, I only have so much ability to enforce her leaving while I'm up on the horse, And since I was too lazy to go back home and tie her up, I decided she'd be fine. She had been around cattle before, and knew to not chase them and pretty much stay out of their way.

As I got off and opened the gate, I noticed a black calf watching the dog. Sure enough, as soon as we got through the gate, he chased after Kelsey. She quickly ducked back under the fence and out of harms way. She then followed us up the fence line until she was safely away from her 400 pound attacker and trotted back up to our horses...

Where she was fine as long as she was diligent enough to stay close to us the cattle would watch her, but not approach...

You realize some things are just so tempting that they override common sense, right?

Well, a jack rabbit jumped up in front of us, and of course Kelsey tore after it...But, she quickly spun around and ran right back to us when a cow took off after her! I chuckled and tried to keep a closer eye on her, and keep my horse between her and any cattle that seemed bent on removing the four legged canine threat from their herd...

Well, Bookworm had counted 51 calves, and I had 53 cows and 1 bull, when we noticed that the rest of the herd were north and west of the pond where the gate is to go into the remaining pasture land Dad has this particular herd on....This is the pond that my brother and nephew happened to be hunting around, and as I know Appy to be acutely terrified of guns, and I did not desire to test Sugar's tolerance of fire arms with my sweet baby on her back, we decided to ditch our assigned duty and return home...

Well, as we returned home, Kelsey got comfortable in her surroundings and anticipated where we were going. Consequently, before I knew it she was quite a ways in front of me...By the way, how far is "a ways?" I'm totally unsure. I'm pretty sure it's improper grammar, but this is a blog, not an English paper, and "a ways" is truly how far she had gone...In this case I will clarify it to be maybe 50 yards or so...

I noticed the black calf that Dad surely needs to wean, watching her...I had just began to mentally debate what was about to occur when the scenario played out...

The calf tore after Kelsey...

Kelsey panicked.

She was right along the fence line, but instead of darting under it, she turned to her right...

Directly into the herd.

Did you know that cattle consider dogs a threat? My heart leaped into my throat as I saw about 6 cows immediately begin to charge and circle around her...

Remember Appy? He's all of 28 years old. Well, apparently if you kick him hard enough and start to yell at the cattle, he responds rather quickly...I didn't know he & I could still sort cattle off so quickly, or that Kelsey would so quickly understand that she needed to keep the horse between her and the cattle...And she tore back to the house like as fast as her little legs would carry her.

Gentle Reader, please do not be overly impressed with my sorting abilities...It was all over with very quickly. I think the cattle were startled to have the horse go from a calm walk to tearing up to them, so they all decided to get going while the getting was good...

I'm sure the entire episode was over in a few seconds...And I was shaking when it was all said and done...

I breathed a gigantic sigh of relief...

Then I heard a voice yelling "Mooooommiiiiiiieee!"

I looked behind me, and there was my precious child with her horse running up to me, and the reins both on the left side....

Apparently, Bookworm decided that she did not want to see Kelsey die a horrible death, and she had closed her eyes...

Of course when Appy & I took off, Sugar did not want to be left out of the fun, so she shook her head and took off...Flipping the right rein over her head, and leaving Bookworm uncertain of what to do but yell for her mother...

Of course, the horse stopped as soon as she reached her destination...

And we had a safety lesson on never closing your eyes, keeping a tight grip on the reins, and remembering to drag the horses head to your knee if they ever try to run off with you...

After we got home, we unsaddled the horses and laid on the ground with the dog, hugging her neck and telling her how stupid she was for pulling stunt like that.