Yaks, wow!
My kelpie is afraid of sheep, so I really, really hope he would never enter a corral filled with yaks. Because I'd probably go back for him too
But it is hard to say for sure what a particular person may do in terms of heroics (stupid or otherwise) when the adrenaline is pumping. I suspect most people are capable of freezing or capable of acts of impulsive bravery, and it may all be down to the way the chips fell that day.
Yeah, I have a dog in my novel. She's mostly there for a little comic relief and to add some dimension to a couple of my characters, though she does find my protagonist's battered, unconscious body early on in the story. Some readers have commented they want to see more of the dog later in the story, want to see her do something heroic. But I can't think of a way to write her into the combat scenes without getting her or one of my other characters killed (when he or she tries to save the dog and forgets to duck). She's a border collie type dog, not a mastiff or war dog.
I don't want to do that thing where you use a cute little animal that could die at any moment to insert tension into scenes or raise the stakes.
