Don't talk to me about fecking donkeys ...I've got 2 ten inch scars on both sides of my forearm where one of the b***ers threw me off when I was 10

Well I know its not a came lol. Naw I asked and apparently its some kind of cow from India, it has a small hump at the base of its neck a very friendly animal.

The tree walk is great. Its basically a series of walks high up in the tree you have a wooden walkway (with bannisters and mesh wire to stop you falling) from tree top to tree top and a few points that give people room to pass and a place where you can stop & have a look. It is quite short but good fun.

sounds good

I know the cow your meaning they use them in India as beasts of burden, they plough with them and ride on them and stuff, Its amazing what you can actually do with cows, they can be ridden just like horses, I have an old book with black/white pictures of when oxen were used as beasts of burden and transport in Britain and theres kids riding on them while theyre ploughing etc, shame cows are only seen as food/milk producers nowadays cos they are intelligent and useful animals on a lot of other levels.

I have ridden on a cow before
I used to make friends with the cows on the farm I lived at as a teenager and they would let me sit on their backs when they were lying down so I got one used to me sitting on its back standing up ,it worked fine untill the cow walked down a hill and I went flying over its head and landed in a heap at its feet
the cow just stood and looked at me as if to say "what are you doing down there ?"

When I lived on Islay my uncled had a cow at his farm called D9 (because that was the name on his ear tag) anyway when we were younger we all used to sit on D9 he was very placid because he was hand raised after the mother died not long after he was born. I remember one occasion my cousin was over from Glasgow and I was so upset because she got to go on Misty the horse and I had to make do with D9 the cow. Even to this day all my cousins who were young when he was around talk about D9 very fondly...I would like to say it was a happy ending but......well typical farmer style he was later sent to the slaughter

i love cows, would love to have one to graze in the field with the horses but all the rubbish you have to go through with tags and movement orders and paperwork, I couldnt be arsed, my friend has some though, she has dexter and highland crosses, my fave breed is ther belted galloway they are really nice (black with a white band round their middle - unusual looking!)

I like Highland Cows, mean looking buggers I would never mess with them lol. I agree they are nice animals, they are just the norm to me because of where I was brought up and the fact that lots of my family were and are farmers.

Tell you what though even though we all speak fondly of D9 not one of us has ever contemplated being a veggie lol.

Laura

i do not like cows! when i was 8 months pregnant with my oldest son hubby and i went walking through a country park near us and for a few months a year a farmer grazes his cows there but it is a popular dog walking area and loads of people about most of the time so i wasnt worried about the cows as i assumed they were used to people. it was fairly quiet when we went as it was early evening but still light obviousley and i was happily waddling round. all of a sudden hubby said to me in quite an urgent tone 'run!!' well to be fair sprinting has never been my thing and def not at 8 months pregnant. i looked over my shoulder to see an angry cow running at me! well i waddled quicker with my whole life flashing before my eyes and we ran into a wooded ditch and the flipping thing was still coming at which point not very bright hubby said i would have to get up a tree!!! yeah right!!! well we ended up having to hide round a tree and we had to stay down and very still while it stomped round huffing and puffing for about half an hour!!! we were lucky there was this wooded ditch if i had been nearer the middle of the park i would never of got away! so dont tell em cows are nice!!!!!!

i have a question, in a book im reading now its going into where the dog originated from, and even tho they are still sayin the wolf, they brought up evidence that when they selectedly bred foxes over 18 generations they were very dog like in appearence, barked like a dog, looked for its master and wagged its tail. So what is to suggest that dogs didnt come from foxes? cos the guy was saying that even selectively breeding wolves, they couldnt breed tameness, the pups would have to be retamed each time for example and were never safe around humans.

can someone enlighten me?? i have to go to work now, but will look for ur responses later

btw, the book is 'Dogs, a new understanding of canine origin, behaviour and evolution' by raymond and lorna coppinger. a book suggested by Shadowboxer

Hi Jenny

Now that is a wide ranging question. Copinger has turned the scientific beliefs in dogs wolf like ancestory and the Alpha Male and Female theory on its head. The book is brilliantly written and a revelation some of his statements are contentious however I agree with him on the origins of the Wolf ancestory.

Basically he is stating that possibly some 40,000 years ago a strain of wolf gradually mutated over a period of time so that it became what is now known as Village dogs. You are correct in the fact that you can partly train a Wolf but only if you rear before its eyes open and before 16 days have elapsed and you must stay with it almost 24/7 up to about 16 weeks. But if that part tamed wolf breeds then the offspring would be totally wild unless the same hand rearing and time frame ensued.

What he is saying is the old idea that man tamed the Wolf for his own ends by getting young cubs and rearing them and teach them to be human social is nonsemse and i agree with his findings.

I believe it was a mutation as he suggests that lost it fear of neolithic man and lived on the refuse and detritus of mans dumps, as we see with the many millions of wild/feral/village dogs today. Dogs though this may sound contentous are effectively parasites ie we vcan live without them but they cannot live without us they do not have the correct motor responses/ brain shape to become truly wild dogs and hunt game. Which also throws out the argument for BARF. All feral dogs live near villages and do not hunt in packs as Wolves do.

Dogs definately didn't come from foxes, dogs for instance can interbreed with Jackals coyotes and Wolves but not foxes and foxes are a solitary territorial animal rather than a pack animal and its designation is Lupine not Canine.

Don't know whether that helps.

Stan