Join up? If I must. Round up? No chance!

Max has accepted his Dually, grudgingly, and long ago delighted me with "join up", but if I think some pony bothering, western riding, horse whispering, stetson wearing COWBOY is going to turn Max into a cow pony, then, apparently, I've got another think coming.

I took a break in the afternoon yard work to work Max. The skies were threatening (again) (still), my back was hurting (again) (still) but Max and I are both tired of the indoor school, so I figured we'd take the Dually out for a little spin, and if it rained on us, well, we'd get wet.

We were walking down the lane, doing some work on changing pace when I saw a lone man walking towards me, and recognised him as the dairy farmer. Waved and he waved back, then turned a made a noise of encouragement. To his dog, I thought.

We got level with each other and the farmer smiled, nodded to Max and said, "He doesn't mind cows, does he?"

"No, he grew up with cows," I replied. I was about to ask why, when I saw why. A herd... well, a herdette really, of loose cows coming down the lane towards us.

"What the...?" Max stood still and went all statuesque on me.

"So he'll be fine then," the farmer said.

"Umm..."

Max lost all sense of decorum, dignity and gravitas.

"Cows! Cows heading this way! Run! Run! Cows!"

I told him he was silly and he knew very well what cows were. He used to share his field with them, but Max would not be reasoned with. Rather than fight him, I turned him back towards home and he took off in a mad trot of panic and disarray. I wanted to try and collect him, but I was almost helpless with laughter.

"You big jessie!" I chided fondly, as we heard the farmer laughing behind us. "Just walk, sir. The cows aren't going to hurt you."

"Cows! Run for your lives! Take cover! It's an ambush! STAMPEDE!"

So I ran with him, arm over his withers for support, laughing myself silly.

We turned up the yard drive and into the indoor school for a little bit of calm work in hand. Twenty minutes of beautiful trotting on one long line and his Dually. Really pleasing effort from the boy. Then as the sun was still shining, we ventured back out and up the lane again with no further close encounters of the bovine kind.