In the wild, animals will respond to predation risk or threats from conspecifics by increasing vigilance, while decreasing time spent feeding. The amount of fear animals experience may be related to the amount of time spent vigilant. The time spent vigilant was tested in dairy cows in response to a variety of situations: a new location, the presence of a dog, or the presence of an aversive, gentle or unfamiliar handler. The cows were tested individually in a large outdoor enclosure with an appealing food source. The animal’s vision was restricted by the feeder, so the animal could not feed and scan at the same time. Any time the animal’s head was raised was defined as vigilance time. Each cow was tested 12 times. There was greater vigilance time during the initial trials, but this decreased over time. The presence of a dog resulted in greater time spent vigilant than did the presence of human. The vigilance time, of cows that had been trained to recognize an aversive and gentle person, was recorded in a pen that contained an appealing food source and the aversive, gentle or unfamiliar person close by. Vigilance time increased when the aversive person was in the vicinity, but not when the gentle or unfamiliar person was nearby. These results suggest that increased vigilance is correlated with increased fearfulness in animals.