Rose in a Storm by Jon Katz

saw. She did it again. Then again. He looked less certain now, less aggressive.
    One of the other goats lowered her head to butt Rose, but waited, cautious about engaging her. Rose gave her the eye, a strong warning look. The third kept eating, watching her nervously. Goats did not act in unison, but Rose knew that these were very attached to one another, and they hated to be alone. They would stay close.
    If she could get one to move, the others should follow. She kept an eye on all of them and didn’t allow herself to be surrounded. Goats had little patience and short attention spans. That was their weakness.
    Rose had lots of patience, and she never quit.
    She backed up, lowered her head, and began barking andgrowling. Every few seconds, when the male began to nibble on the bark, she would charge at him and bite his shoulder, then spin him again. He was tiring of this. He would rather be eating hay—anywhere—than trying to outmaneuver this determined creature. Rose grasped this. She had to wear him down. He would quit. She wouldn’t.
    The other two were bleating loudly, anxious. She stopped, lowered her head, bared her teeth, barked more insistently. The male came out again to charge at her, but she was well prepared for him now, and he would not get close enough to butt her again. She sidestepped him and turned suddenly, going after the younger female, the most timid of the three.
    That goat cried out, and Rose, making sure she was between her and the shed, leapt forward and bit her on the nose, drawing blood. It was a sensitive spot, and it moved sheep rapidly, but it stunned the younger goat, frightened her. The goat turned, complaining in a loud and shrill way, and then began running in retreat down the hill.
    The other two lifted their heads in confusion, and Rose got behind them and lunged and barked and nipped. She had them. Rose kept at it for a few minutes, and, as she knew would happen, they eventually quit the struggle and tore off after their mate down the hill, toward the safety of Sam, whom they associated with food and the shed that was their shelter.
    They bounded nimbly through the snow over the hilltop, faster than Rose could run through such deep drifts, down to the shed. Sam held the gate open and Rose made her way, steadily and laboriously, down the hill after them, to make sure they felt her silent pressure at their backs.
    Sam closed the gate and, that done, looked up at the renegade cows. Without additional conversation or commands,Rose veered off across the pasture and into the stand of trees where the cows were clustered, mooing and huddling together for warmth, trying unsuccessfully to get out of the wind and snow.
    Rose could see that they needed to get down into the lower pasture as the wind was ferocious at the hilltop. She could already feel the warmth draining from her own body.
    Rose went into a crouch and lay still, watching as Sam made his way through the storm to the lower cow pasture, where he shoveled for a few minutes to make sure the gate was clear. It had been forced open a few feet by the wind-spooked animals, and that was where these cows would have gotten out.
    Rose pursued a different strategy with the cows. Though they were more pliant, cows were also more dangerous than goats, especially when they panicked. Cows could kill a dog with one kick, crack her skull, or trample her. She had been kicked a few times, and she remembered it well. Still, cows were also dumber and slower and much more predictable.
    She lay low to the ground, creeping along slowly. One or two of the cows had noticed her and bellowed, but when she stopped moving, she lost their interest again. Rose waited until Sam had the gate cleared. When he waved his hand and called out to her, her ears tilted to pick up his voice cutting through the roaring wind and snow. “Rose, get the cows here.”
    She moved up two or three feet, then stopped. The cows, sensing her movement, became more anxious now, stirring.