Report number: 986
Date of incident: 15/8/2019
Location: Sycamore Gap
Group of cows with calves. Dog on a lead. Family walk.
Report: “We were on the main footpath leaving Sycamore gap in Northumbria – the walk we were following was on a National Trust printed leaflet. When we got into the field I could see the cattle all crowded around the footpath and the stile, they were huge – looked like highland black cattle – huge horns. I sensed for some reason we may have trouble, possibly because of an earlier incident (described later,) and told my daughters if there were any problems to jump over the wall to the next field. I said this as sort of a joke but then as we approached one cow in particular looked troubled by the dog (who was on a short lead and perfectly calm,) she started following and virtually cornered myself with the dog, and terrifyingly when about 4 foot away, put her head right down and started scraping her front leg as if about to charge. I noticed there was a ditch with long grass, chucked the dog and myself in it (which effectively hid the dog) and walked slowly along, this thankfully seemed to confuse the cow, but it felt like a very very close call.”
“I contacted the National Trust as didn’t know what else to do. They said they would talk to the farmer involved but who knows. A few years previous to that in the Lake District we walked through a field of jersey cows, I always remember but couldn’t quite believe it, but do now, we had no dog then but they were definitely bothered by our then around 5 year old daughter – who was just with me on the path , they started gathering pace but thankfully I was near the stile by this point and got her over quick – I think it could have been nasty if we had been further away as they gathered speed – hope this helps wish I had thought about reporting to the HSE or yourselves – it didn’t occur to me until I saw the guardian article.”
Additional comment: “Really troubled me that this was a leafleted walk you can pick up at the National trust places, these cows were aggressive as with calves , this was quite a small field , it was the dog that was worrying them TBF – but based on other incident with young child I was really worried about families in that area as well.”
Cattle Safety 