Denis: Field of cows disrupts walking the dog

Oct 23 2009 by Denis Kilcommons

SINCE the cows arrived we have avoided the field at the bottom of our road – which annoys the dog tremendously as the footpath across this chunk of turf contains some of the best sniffs around.

I mean, that’s how dogs get their enjoyment. Sniffing the ground for clues as to who of their ilk has “gone” before, so to speak.

Other dog walkers have continued to brave the trail, presumably on the basis of exercising their right (as well as their dog) along a public footpath despite the beasts in their way.

Footpaths are inviolate to some people. They will continue walking them even when there are alternatives that will avoid possible dangers. Being bloody-minded seems to be part of the human condition.

“I’ve been crossing this path man and boy for the last 100 years and I’m not going to stop now.”

“But grandad, they’ve planted mines in the top half and are grazing woolly mammoths in the bottom pasture.”

“A woolly mammoth never did me any harm.”

“That’s probably because you’ve never seen one before.”

It reminds me of the time the Examiner football team were playing a match in Ossett one fine Sunday morning. The pitch was on a local recreation ground.

Half way through a strongly contested first half, an elderly lady set off diagonally across the pitch along a barely discernible path with her small dog.

The fact that 22 blokes were charging around did not deter her. The game stopped while she slowly exercised her right. It stopped again when she made the return journey in the second half.

However, my wife Maria prefers to avoid such bravado and has stayed well clear of the field at the end of our road after reading stories of killer cows.

She is frightened that if she sets foot on the land, they will charge and trample her for invading the turf they now claim with squatters rights and large dumps of cow dung.