HOWELL – A pair of Howell police officers did their best rodeo roping impression after they spent part of a morning trying to lasso a loose cow.
On March 22, the day after a spring snow storm blanketed central New Jersey, Patrolman John Louhier responded to a call that was unlike any to which he had responded during his 20 years on the force.
At 7:15 a.m., the Howell Police Department received a call from someone who reported there was “a bull running at large” on Oak Glen Road. A tree had fallen during the storm, breaking the fence that contained the animal and allowing it to escape from its home turf.
The animal was later determined to be a cow.
“I was the lucky guy to answer the call (and) my lieutenant (Lt. Joe Markulic) was with me,” Louhier said. “I have no history with (cows). We thought we would be able to (return the animal). We knew where it belonged and a neighbor said it was friendly.”
The officers were given food by a resident so they could lure the cow toward them and back to where it belonged.
“The neighbors said if we lured her with the food she would go back to the property, so we tried that and it really did not work out well for us,” Louhier said.
The cow was never farther than 300 yards from home and with a caretaker on the way, the officers just wanted to keep the animal contained.
“I got a rope we all carry, thinking maybe we could get it over the (animal) and at least we could use it as a leash or tie her off to something,” Louhier said. “Every time I tried to put (the rope) over her head she would kind of get up. She never really came at us, but she would give us this look like if we got any closer we would get the horns.”
Markulic then put the rope on a food bucket and when the cow went to eat, the officers were able to slip the rope up and over the animal’s head.
“She did not like that too much, so she pulled me down the street until I ended up having to let go of the rope,” Louhier said. “Oak Glen Road is not a crazy busy road, but it is a main road … so we were fearful the cow would get hit or maybe injure somebody who hit it.”
The officers eventually retrieved the rope and tied the cow to a tree. The caretaker arrived, fed the cow and took it home.
Police posted the incident on Facebook and said, “Howell officers are highly trained in a variety of complex tasks, but every so often we are confronted with another challenge.”