Eighty-one-year-old Joice Davis of Mathews got a scare last week, and she hopes her experience will bring about some changes in the county’s animal control policies. Mathews County’s Animal Control Officer Jean Roberts assured the board of supervisors Tuesday night that changes are coming.

As Davis pulled up in the driveway of her farm across the road from Mathews High School around 6 p.m. last Tuesday, she noticed that the four cattle she owns were acting strangely. Three of them were watching something near the hay and the fourth one was moving briskly. Then she noticed a creature on the ground “hot on the heels of my cows.” It looked like “a motorized bedroom shoe,” she said, and the cows were moving to get out of its way “but it never stopped; it kept moving and moving.”

Davis quickly realized it was a skunk and, having seen a rabid animal before, thought it probably had rabies, so she called 911 to get help. But help ...