Cowism
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  • Noble Cow
    • Cow Separated From Owner - Goes On Hunger Strike
    • A Motherless Child - Finds A Mother
    • Flood Heroine - Now A Pampered Princess
    • Science of Subtle, Non-Verbal Communication
    • Brazilian Cow Braves Crocodile Field
    • The Bull Star - Busier Than Bollywood Heroes
    • Secret of India’s Street Roaming Cows
    • Beat Stress, Rent A Cow
    • ‘Sweet’ Memories of World War II
    • Cows Turn Pastureland Into Useful Food
    • Fresh Grass to Fresh Milk: A Life Giving Miracle
    • Basava - An Oracle Ox
    • We Are A Family
    • Bovine Buddies
    • Brave Act: 70-year-old Fights off Tiger To Rescue Cow
    • The Emotional Depth of A Cow
    • Holy Cow That Received Enlightenment
    • Last Frontiers of Inhumanity
    • For The Crime of Taking A Walk
    • The Funniest, Happiest Cow that Ever Lived
    • Yvonne - The World Famous Runaway Cow
    • Until The Cows Come Home
    • “Help! My Cow Speaks Cantonese!”
    • Reuniting Mother And Baby
    • Cow That Helped World War II Prisoners Escape
    • Humble Ox
    • A Day With Krishna’s Cows In Vraja
    • A Good Life Makes For Happy Cows
    • When Friends Just Stand By
    • Passing Away
    • Where Are The Boy Cows?
    • I'm Sorry, What Was Your Name Again?
  • Cow And Humanity
    • Cow Is Complete Ecology
    • Cow: An Engine Of Progress And Prosperity
    • Cow: A Life Form For All-round Good Of The World​
  • Cows Are Cool
    • The Old Man And The Cow - An Extraordinary Friendship
    • A Mean Leopard : Moo-ved By The Love of A Cow
    • Ways To Cool Down An Angry Bull
    • Looking Beyond Their Exterior
    • Motherly Licks That Saved A Life
    • Brainy Bovines
    • Cows Don’t Want to Die
    • Emily the Cow Who Saved Herself
    • Cows Never Forget A Place or a Face
    • Wooden Cow Moo-ves Hearts
    • The Social Lives of Cows
    • Canada Owes A Lot To This Cow
    • Gentle Giants
    • Cows To Reform Prisoners In Indian Jails
    • Cows Grieve
    • She Liked To Listen To Your Story
    • The Brave Russian Bull
    • Cows Are Intensely Emotional
    • Cow Feeds Baby Goats
    • Some Facts About Cows!
    • This One Is ‘Paan’ Fanatic!
    • Kids And Cows - In Ancient India
    • Cows Love This 8 Years Old Girl
    • Study : Cows Excel At Selecting Leaders
    • Bulls - An Observation
    • An Old Cow Tugs At Millions of Heartstrings
    • Cow’s Cradle
    • Sweet Music for Milking
    • Happy Cows, Happy Society
    • Holy Cow! De-stressing Is So Simple
    • The Path of Prosperity - Little Girl Has Better Idea
    • Cows - Fussy About Cleanliness
    • Cows Moo With A Regional Accent
    • Canny Cows
    • The ‘Gentle’ Bessie
    • 14 Cows For America
    • Ganga’s Story
    • Cows Form Cliques!
    • Cowlick - The Way To Give ‘Solace’
    • Story of Sadie - The Face of Modern Dairy Industry
    • Cows Have Strange Sixth Sense
    • Cows Are Precious
    • Ignorance - A Prerequisite of The Standard Western Diet
    • Inseparable Friends - A Calf And A Goat
    • What Do Cows Drink? - A Riddle
    • Suddenly in Fashion - Farming and Cows
    • Cow Fashion Show
    • This One Was My Bodyguard
    • Appendix
  • To Kill Cow
    • Section I : Life Is Sacred >
      • Animals Have A Soul
      • Mother And Child - A Story
      • Religious Philosophy And Attitude Towards Animals
      • Hunter And The Sage
      • Legalized Terrorism - Animal Abuse And Killing
    • Section II : Why Do Indians Consider Cow As Sacred? >
      • Sacred Cow - A Dumb Indian Idea?
      • Cow Gives And Gives And Gives
      • Humanity Owes Milk Debt To Cows
      • Cow - The Provider of All Human Necessities
      • Cow - A Symbol of Innocence, Purity And Magnanimity
      • To Further The Cause of Cow Protection
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COWS ARE COOL: LOVE ‘EM!

8.
Emily the Cow Who Saved Herself

        Emily knew that danger was near. She had never been in a place like this before—a little shed with a five-foot gate behind her. All of her companions had gone through the swinging doors in front of her, and not one had returned. The men who had locked the gate at Frank Arena’s slaughterhouse in Hopkinton, Mass., were now off having lunch. Emily saw her chance, and she took it.
        When she made her move, jaws dropped and workers stared in amazement. Suddenly, Emily—all 1,600 pounds of her was airborne, sailing over the gate and out of the building. “A cow just can’t do that,” exclaimed a butcher.
        As residents of this rural area west of Boston were to discover, Emily, a three-year-old Holstein, can do many things cows aren’t supposed to do.
        Slaughterhouse workers took off after their runaway animal, but she disappeared into the woods and eluded them all day. It was November, 1995, the beginning of an odyssey that would capture the imagination of the entire community. They scoured the woods, leaving out bales of hay to entice Emily back into their grasp. She would have none of it.
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Some years ago an English woman who had the gift of being able to understand animals came to my shelter in Delhi. Walking up to a cow, she turned to me and said “ She says that her head still hurts ” The woman did not know that the cow had been in an accident.
        ~Maneka Gandhi

        Instead, people reported seeing her running with a herd of deer, learning from them how to forage in the woods. Soon the local paper was running updates on Emily sightings.
        Some residents began to think, “There’s got to be some way we can purchase her and let her live in peace.” Soon it seemed that nobody wanted to see her captured. Local farmers started leaving out bales of hay for her to eat.
        When the residents contacted the slaughterhouse owners, they were touched by their willingness to help. Granddaughter of the slaughterhouse owner, Angela, had given Emily her name, and even Frank (the owner) seemed impressed by her pluck. At first he offered to let the residents have Emily for the bargain price of $350; then, after consulting his granddaughter, he changed the price to $1.
        A blizzard hit, and Emily’s food sources were covered by snow. Local farmers brought grain, hay, and water to places where they thought Emily might be found; the food was eaten after they left, but Emily wasn’t ready to reveal herself.
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        Finally, one December day after they spread out some food, the residents saw Emily. “We looked over our shoulder, and she was right there looking at us,” one of them recalls. Emily had lost 500 pounds and needed veterinary treatment after her 40-day ordeal, but the loving care of her well-wishers brought her back to her full weight.
        Emily became a celebrity in the community and people looked after her well. Soon she had a company. Gabriel, a calf that was rescued on his way to a local slaughterhouse and put in the shelter along with Emily. Emily groomed and licked him as fastidiously as any loving mom. Further she was joined by a pair of turkeys, a mother goat and her two kids, and three rabbits—all of them rescued from inhumane conditions.
        But Emily’s biggest test was yet to come. Ellen Little, producer of 1995’s film Richard III, started work on a film version of Emily’s saga. Emily did not have to leave her happy home for the lights of Hollywood, though. She was played by another Holstein—and that gave another cow a chance to become a star. (By Michael Ryan, Parade Magazine, May 4, 1997)
        These are just a few of the countless stories of cows who value their lives and fear death, just like humans and all other animals. In the world., more than 75 million cows are killed in the meat and dairy industries every year. When they are still very young, cows are burned with hot irons (branding), their testicles are ripped out of their scrotums (castration), and their horns are cut or burned off—all without painkillers. Once they have grown big enough, they are sent to massive, muddy feedlots to be fattened for slaughter.
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Cows, however, are never meant to be killed or eaten by human beings. In every sastra, cow killing is vehemently condemned. Indeed, one who kills a cow must suffer for as many years as there are hairs on the body of a cow. Manu-samhita says, pravrttir esa bhutanam nivrttis tu maha-phala: we have many tendencies in this material world, but in human life one is meant to learn how to curb those tendencies. Those who desire to eat meat may satisfy the demands of their tongues by eating lower animals, but they should never kill cows, who are actually accepted as the mothers of human society because they supply milk.
        ~Srila Prabhupada (Srimad Bhagavatam 6.4.9)

Animals too have a right to live.....just like we do. They were created just like we were. Why people kill them for food? I believe a lot in Karma....I’m sure people who treat animals with cruelty are going to be reborn as animals, with the same cruelty meted out to them. An animal, unless fierce and wild, would never kill humans for food. They always reciprocate the love and kindness we shower them with. But look at what we humans do to them, in spite of being knowledgable and aware. May God enlighten such people.
       
~Donald Perez, Portland
        Millions of cows living on dairy farms spend most of their lives either in large sheds or on feces-caked mud lots where disease is rampant. Cows raised for their milk are repeatedly impregnated, and their calves are taken from them and sent to veal farms or other dairy farms. When their exhausted bodies can no longer produce enough milk, they are sent to slaughter and ground up for hamburgers.
        Many cows die on the way to slaughter, and those who survive are shot in the head with a bolt gun, hung up by their legs, and taken onto the killing floor, where their throats are cut and they are skinned. Some cows remain fully conscious throughout the entire process—according to one slaughterhouse worker, in an interview with the Washington Post, “they die piece by piece.”
        Also keep in mind that every time you choose to buy a leather jacket or leather shoes, you sentence animals to a lifetime of suffering. Buying leather directly contributes to factory farms and slaughterhouses, since the skins of animals are the most economically important by-product of the multibillion-dollar meat industry.
        You can help these gentle, intelligent, sensitive animals by removing their flesh from your diet and refusing to wear their skins. To get started, get your free vegetarian starter kit, packed with nutrition information, shopping tips, delicious recipes, and much more from the many sites that are selling them on internet. There are thousands of websites on vegetarianism, animal cruelty etc. which can be referred to. One out of many such sites is VegCooking.com which offers cruelty-free recipes, vegetarian products, cookbook recommendations, and a shopping guide. Kurma dasa and Yamuna devi dasi are some of the world renowned chefs whose vegetarian cooking books have sold by millions. Higher Taste (available at krishna.com) is another great book which offers mouthwatering vegetarian recipes and irrefutable arguments for a vegetarian lifestyle.
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What is the purpose of eating? To live. If you can live very peacefully, very nicely, with good health, by eating so many varieties of foodstuff given by Krishna, why should I kill an animal? This is humanity. Why should I imitate an animal? Then what is the difference between animal and human being? If you have no discretion, if you have no consciousness.
Besides that, scientifically, your teeth is meant for eating vegetables. The tiger has teeth for eating meat. Nature has made it like that. It has to kill another... Therefore he has got nails, he has got teeth, he has got strength. But you have no such strength. You cannot kill a cow like that, pouncing like tiger. You have to make slaughterhouse and sit down at your home. Somebody may slaughter, and you can eat very nicely. What is this? You do like tiger. Pounce upon a cow and eat.
        ~Srila Prabhupada (Bhagavad-gita 3.11-19 — Los Angeles, December 27, 1968)