Human Ragdolls

If sheep wrangling was fun, then cow wrestling was madness!

To start these cows were dry cows, they have nothing better to do than eat and be our subjects. Unfortunately, they were the same ones used by the other groups. Smart cows had caught on to the "being restrained" bit.

The first act was quite easy...haltering the cows. There are two ways to put on a halter. One rope has a fixed nose piece that pulls under the chin. It's a little tricky to untangle but easy-on. Next was a simple slip halter--the lovely picture on the right.


Second on the agenda was checking teeth. First, put an arm around its muzzle. Second, put thumb in corner of cow's mouth and observe. The second part of the teeth-checking endeavour is to grab its tongue...yep, grab the COW'S tongue. I think it feels like a sea cucumber without the slime. Cows have papilla in their mouth that try to eat your hand.

One cow kept her nose to glued to the ground and refused to move. When a 700 kg animal says no, it means no! As I attempted to help restrain the evil cow, I was squished between the crush and its head.

Finally, we had to put gags between the cow's teeth...this was not going to happen. The Langhill guys tried to show us, hence the lovely picture below! The gag is a metal brace to keep the cow's mouth open so one can stick their hand the ruminant's mouth. It's like the cow's dentist from hell. As soon as the metal touches their teeth, the cow proceeds to flip out. Of course, my group got stuck with the demo cow first. She did not cooperate, neither did the cow after that or the one after that or--you get the point. I managed to get tossed around a fair bit and slowly drenched in cow spit from my head to toes. Thank god for waterproofs, although my hand was caked in drool. Eventually, I did get the gag in. I had to put the plastic one, hold it there while shoving the other one between it's teeth...the boys had a heck of a time with the big girl on the end. She was huge and extremely pissed. One of them was lifted off the ground!

Well, I'm gonna be sore tomorrow...especially since rugby was a blast!