Dog on Cow Summary

After being beaten up and held hostage for money, Dan is slumped against a wall in a motel room. The two strangers who accosted him, Brucie and Jane, were resting in the room. Dan contemplates what he could do to distract the two so that he may escape. He decides to tell them a story to reduce the tension so that they get bored with him and let him go.

The story is from a time years ago when there was flooding in Eastern Colorado. A farmer moved all of his cows to a higher pasture with the help of his dog. One of the cows escaped. The farmer and the dog go looking for it. The farmer loses his dog.

Before being beaten and robbed Dan considers his driving through a storm from Kansas into Colorado where he picked up Brucie and Jane, two hitchhikers. They became the seeds of the story Dan tells later in the motel.

Brucie interrupts the story and beats up Dan again. Brucie goes to look for money in Dan’s truck. Dan continues telling Jane the story.

That night the farmer hears an animal cry. He goes out to look for the animals. Dan eventually sees the dog. As he approaches the animal, he trips and falls into the water. When he gets up he sees that the dog is actually balancing on the cow and that the cow has an injury. It appears that the dog bit the cow. The dog tries to bite the farmer. The farmer hits the dog. As the farmer tries to harness the cow, it attacks him. He admits that he has to get rid of the dog or the dog will kill him. The farmer tries to harness the cow but eventually, the cow rolls away from him. The farmer struggled to stay above water. The cow rolled over the farmer and he drowned.

When Dan finished the story Jane says nothing. Brucie returns drunk and beats Dan. He threatens to do the same to Jane. Jane chokes Brucie to death and almost chokes Dan. She tells Dan that she is no cow and that Brucie was no dog. Jane takes the money that Brucie stole from Dan and gets Dan’s credit card numbers. She leaves his rental car down the road.

Later, Dan calls the police. They question him but eventually let him go home to his wife.