Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Pandolf and I found half a dozen cows today in my second pasture—it’s only fenced on two sides, so it’s not rare for runaway animals to end up there. I was trying to get Pan interested in wild strawberries (so he would sniff them out for me) and suddenly he ran towards a bush with great interest. When it became clear that what hid behind the bush was a creature too large to be a strawberry, I of course assumed it was Pampe. My apologies! She was unfairly suspected of a crime for the first time in her life (usually she’s correctly suspected).
I decided to walk the little herd home, since by now I am able to recognise individual cows (sometimes! “Here’s Pivoine, so that’s Matthieu’s herd”). It’s easier when they are wearing bells, because farmers like to have their own signature bell of a specific shape or size, so they make different sounds and you can recognise cows by ear even from a distance.
Needless to say Pandolf was thrilled with my plan. He helped me herd them towards the pasture gate (which is very narrow, hence the cow bottleneck in the above pic, but we managed to convince them to walk through it) and then onto the road.
He was never properly taught herding, but he’s so good at it! Running behind them to get them moving, then running ahead to slow them down if they started going a little too fast, and making sure no cow wandered off to the side if we walked past an open pasture, he was a pro. And clearly having a lot of fun. I basically just let him work, and followed.
We made way for a car once; it was someone who had seen me walk the same road with my runaway llama a few times, and he told me “From afar I thought you were herding a whole flock of llamas.” (“Where would I find a flock of llamas??” “Pampe would find them. And convince them to follow her.” Yes. She would.)
We got the cows safely back in their pasture—one fence post was completely uprooted, with the barbed wire on the ground, the cows just stepped right over it, so I put it back up as best I could and wrote a note on the bookmark of my book and tucked it in the gate, saying hi, the fence is damaged over there by the tree and your cows went on a little road trip but Pandolf & I were happy to walk them home. Happy is an understatement! Pandolf was prancing all the way back.
When we arrived home he drank from the spring for 5 min then collapsed
in a shapeless pile of fur in the grass. Having a job is tiring!! I told
him I’m proud of his good work; I think he earned some real herding dog
credentials today. He also earned a couple of spoons of yogurt which is his favourite refreshing summer treat.
