Oct 31, 2019

My first two weeks milking Clara the Dexter milk cow...



When I first got Clara I thought I was going to have to ‘Force my Love on her” for a period of time to get her to trust me, or to come to me, or to be around me. I guess I took for granted the possibility that maybe a person could get a cow that liked them from the beginning~~~

Clara was so 'Not' afraid of me, so much in fact that she started to “Force her Love” on me immediately…






This is when I figured out what the prior owner meant about her being ‘Head Strong’. Clara knows if she wants a human to move, or react to her, she can swing her head/bully people with her head. She knows that if she makes contact with a human with her cranium, she'll get a reaction out of the human. The reaction prior must have been everybody (including the 5 children from the prior owner) getting out of Clara’s way, or… giving her exactly what she wanted.

Clara is kind of a little bully~ In the first few weeks, I was delighted to get Clara's head in the head catch of the stanchion because I was kind of scared of her head. I stayed away from it...

She is tiny, but she is mighty~!

And pushy...





Clara played all sorts of tricks on me in the first few weeks...


One day she would get on the stanchion. The next day she would take 2 hours to get on it.
I realized one day that she wouldn't get on the stanchion when I was standing there, so I started to get everything ready, her grain in her manger in the front of the stanchion, the jars to milk into, etc. and then I would walk away where she couldn't see me. When I heard her walk up on the stanchion for her grain, I would walk back over and set the head catch and continue. At one point, she even had me lining up carrots along the base of the stanchion, leading her to the manger, so she would eat a carrot, take a step, eat a carrot take a step. It was absurd the way she was pulling my strings. 

Cows are smart~!

This milk cow was training me really quickly to do tricks for her. I finally caught on~~~
Then, on October 21st...

Stay tuned for the next episode of the Dexter milk cow saga~~~





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