Gentle Giants

	In This Feature
		Fascinating Facts
		Cow Know-How
		The Social Lives of Cows
		Gentle Giants
		How You Can Help Cows

Cows are emotional animals who have likes and dislikes, just like humans do. The chair of the National Farmers Union in the United Kingdom, Tim Sell, explains, “They are all individuals and all have their own characteristics. They are tremendously curious. They have emotional storms. When it is a miserable, cold day, they will all be miserable, but when it is nice and sunny, you can almost see them smiling.”²⁰

Many cows are affectionate animals who are deeply loyal to their families and human companions. Cows can use their body posture and vocal sounds to express a whole range of emotions, including contentment, interest, anger, and distress.²¹ These gentle giants mourn the death of those they love, even shedding tears over their loss.

Like humans and all animals, cows show strong reactions to bad treatment. For example, Dr. Ed Pajor of Purdue University found that cows resent being handled roughly: “The handlers don’t have to be really mean and hit the cows. It’s just a slap on the rump in the way that many farmers would. But the cows don’t like it and it makes a real difference.”²²

With kind treatment, cows can be very loyal companions. Anyone who has spent time with cows knows that they look out for their friends, both human and animal. In her book Peaceful Kingdom: Random Acts of Kindness by Animals, Stephanie Laland writes that when the Rev. O. F. Robertson began to go blind, his cow Mary became his “seeing-eye cow.” Mary would walk along with him, nudging him away from obstacles. She diligently accompanied Robertson everywhere he went for the rest of his life.²³

Cows Grieve

When they are separated from their families, friends, or human companions, cows grieve over the loss. Researchers report that cows become visibly distressed after even a brief separation.²⁴ The mother-calf bond is particularly strong, and there are countless reports of mother cows who continue to frantically call and search for their babies after the calves have been taken away and sold to veal farms.²⁵

Author Oliver Sacks, M.D., wrote of a visit that he and cattle expert Dr. Temple Grandin made to a dairy farm and of the great tumult of bellowing that they heard when they arrived: “‘They must have separated the calves from the cows this morning,’ Temple said, and, indeed, this was what had happened. We saw one cow outside the stockade, roaming, looking for her calf, and bellowing. ‘That’s not a happy cow,’ Temple said. ‘That’s one sad, unhappy, upset cow. She wants her baby. Bellowing for it, hunting for it. She’ll forget for a while, then start again. It’s like grieving, mourning—not much written about it. People don’t like to allow them thoughts or feelings.’”²⁶

John Avizienius, the senior scientific officer in the Farm Animal Department of the RSPCA in Britain, says that he “remembers one particular cow who appeared to be deeply affected by the separation from her calf for a period of at least six weeks. When the calf was first removed, she was in acute grief; she stood outside the pen where she had last seen her calf and bellowed for her offspring for hours. She would only move when forced to do so. Even after six weeks, the mother would gaze at the pen where she last saw her calf and sometimes wait momentarily outside of the pen. It was almost as if her spirit had been broken and all she could do was to make token gestures to see if her calf would still be there.”²⁷

Cows Don’t Want to Die

Like all animals, cows value their lives and don’t want to die. Stories abound of cows who have gone to extraordinary lengths to fight for their lives.

A cow named Suzie was about to be loaded on a freighter bound for Venezuela when she turned around, ran back down the gangplank, and leaped into the river. Even though she was pregnant, or perhaps because she was pregnant, she managed to swim all the way across the river, eluding capture for several days. (Believe it or not, cows actually love swimming!) She was rescued by PETA and sent to a sanctuary for farmed animals.²⁸

When workers at a slaughterhouse in Massachusetts went on break, Emily the cow made a break of her own. She took a tremendous leap over a five-foot gate and escaped into the woods, surviving for several weeks in New England’s snowiest winter in a decade, cleverly refusing to touch the hay put out to lure her back to the slaughterhouse. When she was eventually caught by the owners of a nearby sanctuary, public outcry demanded that the slaughterhouse allow the sanctuary to buy her for one dollar.²⁹ Today, Emily is living happily in Massachusetts, a testimony to the fact that eating meat means eating animals who don’t want to die.

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