My companions will run off, about as far as the edge of my adventurer's field of vision, then come back, then run away again, and so on. My hypothesis is that this is caused by the mountain goats that surround us. One of the goats will approach, notice us and enter its "encounter" state. My companions will perceive this as an attack and run off to counterattack. However, since the "battle" is just an "encounter" and my companions aren't willing to escalate, no actual fighting ever occurs. The goat will run away and my companion will abort their sally and return to me, until the next goat shows up. If you open the 'Q'uest log, you'll find a long list of alleged goat attacks on me and my companions.

This is not a big deal while the player is standing still, but while on the move, all the rushing against animals either slows the player down or leads to party separation. It would be nice if companions didn't treat every "encounter" with an animal as something that must be dealt with.