(This is based on one of my Diablo III characters, a demon hunter, who has one of these weird cow things as a pet. In the game, this type of pet runs around and picks up gold for you after it’s dropped, but doesn’t fight. The cow-pet occasionally gestures and stabs at enemies with her spear, but can’t actually damage them. http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/That_Which_Must_Not_be_Named?file=TWMNBN.jpg )

Usually, when Dalu
followed the sounds of an animal in distress on a demon-infested farm, he found
the demons tormenting some poor animal that he’d end up having to put out of
its misery after he took care of the demons. 

This? This was not an animal, at least not any
he’d ever seen. 

The being snarling up at him from the ground
was bovine in appearance, but small, only about waist-height. More than that,
it was bipedal, long limbs folding strangely under it as it tried to back away
from him. It had bright red eyes, which were a bit odd, but the udder on its stomach rather cut down on any intimidation factor. Whatever it was, it was bleeding heavily from a deep wound on its
outer thigh, preventing it from standing up. The rest of it was dirty and
bloodied almost as badly, though it didn’t appear to be badly wounded anywhere
else. 

Dalu stared down at whatever in gods’ name
this was for several long moments, watching it scrabble uselessly to get away,
then sighed and reached for it. He ought to put whatever this was out of its
misery instead of gawking at it-

But it bawled in terror and pain as he grabbed
at it, kicking at him with its one good leg, and the idea of killing it faded
away. He didn’t really want to hurt it, strange as it was… maybe he could
patch the damn thing up and chase it off afterwards. 

It was quite a fight
to get the thing hauled off and bandaged up, and Dalu was sporting several
hoof-shaped bruises by the time he was done, but it had settled down
somewhat and was just staring at him from across the campfire. 

Which left him wondering what to feed it. What did one offer something shaped like this? 

Hm- might as well try and ask. “And what do I feed you? Hay? Raw meat? The flesh of newborns?” 

The thing didn’t respond, so Dalu watched it for a moment more, then pulled a piece of dried meat from his pack and slowly held it out to the thing. Whatever it was, it bled like an animal, and he didn’t feel like he should just let it starve.And Dalu was curious- what did this eat? 

Meat, apparently, because it snatched the meat away from him and gulped it down in several large bites. It then sat up further, looking very interested, and stared hopefully at the pack until he gave it more. Quite a bit more, actually, he had plenty. Those giant beasts he kept having to kill so they’d stop charging him didn’t taste half bad when smoked, and he wasn’t about to run out of beasts to slay any time soon. Now, what else could he feed it? 

Turned out he could feed it just about anything he tried. An old carrot, some hardtack, a large handful of long grass from near a creek, a cattail root- all greedily accepted. Also, a locust that got too close was snapped up, even though the creature seemed to be mostly full by that point. It just ate everything, then? 

Maybe he ought to keep whatever this was with him so it didn’t get up to any trouble. That would give him more time to figure out what it was, for one thing. 

And it seemed quite content to follow him around as soon as it was up and about. He fed it at least once a day, offered it the carcasses of any un-contaminated beasts he slew, pointed it towards water, and that was it. 

Then he found a goblin. The damn thing led him through three packs of goat-men before he managed to shoot it enough times to kill it, and it left gold strewn everywhere. 

Dalu fully expected to not get that gold back when he saw the thing gathering it up, but he didn’t pay it much attention. It was just after the strewn gold trail, not the bulk of the coins and the pieces of armor that Dalu actually needed. 

To his surprise, though, the thing ran back and forth between him and the trail, dumping the gold it had gathered into his pack every time it came back. 

The next time he ended up with gold scattered about, this time from a series of shattered urns, it did the same thing. Then the next, and the next, always bringing him every single piece, and starting to watch more alertly for gold once it figured out that he approved. 

Eventually, it kept a large gold earring, which it fit through the hole between its nostrils. Later, it found and kept a simple crown, then a large spear. 

By that point, it had grown, and it was chest-height to him. It was also much more durable, seeming to take no injury from most attacks, and fast enough to flee from anything that posed any real danger. All of which would have been alarming, except that it kept bringing him gold, it stashed a brush in his pack to groom itself with, and it grumbled to itself and slept on top of him when they had to stay somewhere cold. 

Weird cow he’d never identified or not, he was rather fond of the thing. Even if it did occasionally yell at villagers.