My Cow: The Cooperative Spirit at Work

The game began years and years ago.

 

It ended with a 1,700-mile journey across the United States … in a mini-van … with a three-week-old Highland calf named Snickers.

 

Welcome to “My Cow” – an epic finale for two best friends and an epic beginning for one life-changing non-profit organization.

 

The only thing necessary to make it happen was something Hoosier Energy’s Heather Hughet knows all about – the cooperative spirit.

 

My Cow

 

The game is a simple one, perhaps you’ve played it or something similar. As you drive down the road, spot a cow or cows in a field and yell, “My Cow(s),” to claim a point.

 

This game became a staple for Hughet and Melanie Thompson on a number of road trips with ample opportunity to rack up points throughout the Midwest.

 

Even when Thompson moved to Arizona, the game continued. Only now it morphed into screenshots of cows on social media or a picture of a stuffed cow in a store. Eventually it was a game of one-upmanship surprising one another with “My Cow” like the time Thompson ordered a five-foot tall standup cow and had Hughet’s son set it up in her bedroom.

 

“I came home, walked in the room and it scared the bejeezus out of me – My Cow,” Hughet recalled.

 

Recently, the game evolved again as Thompson went in search of a real cow, a mini-cow to be specific, for use at her non-profit Gye Di (pronounced zhee-de).

 

Thompson is an occupational therapist, and Gye Di is an Arizona-based company that “aims to change the world through play by creating an environment without limitations for children with and without disabilities to learn, grow and play together.”

 

The idea was that both typical and non-typical children would get the chance to experience petting a cow and hearing it moo.

 

What she found was that many people online purported to have such cows only to find out they did not while asking exorbitant sums of money.

 

However, when Hughet saw a friend who had her daughter’s picture taken with a smaller-sized cow, she inquired about the breeder.

 

It turns out that while the breeder did not have mini-cows, they did have a herd of mid-sized Highlander cows they were selling off, including a baby that had just been born on Labor Day.

 

Thompson contacted the breeder, confirmed everything was legitimate and the pricing was right.

 

“Oh my god, I’m gonna own a cow,” she told Hughet. “If I get this cow, I win the My Cow game forever.”

 

Hughet replied: “I found this cow for you, so technically it’s My Cow.”

 

Then came the trump card.

 

“I’m forking out the money for this cow, so it is definitely My Cow,” Thompson said.

 

“OK, you win.”

 

Cannonball Calf

 

The big question was how to get Snickers – who will eventually get a partner named Doodles – from Seymour, Indiana, to Queen Creek, Arizona (about 45 minutes from downtown Phoenix).

 

Hiring a transport vehicle would cost four dollars per mile for 1,700 miles – well over $6,000.

 

Renting a cargo van for that distance would still cost $3,000.

 

“Why don’t we rent a stow-and-go mini-van?” Hughet suggested.

 

At only $350 for a one-way rental, that was the way to go.

 

Thompson flew into Indianapolis on September 23, they rented the van and began prepping to pick up Snickers.

 

All the rear seats were stowed in the floorboard. Two giant plastic tarps covered everything. Add in 10 moving blankets, two large dog beds, two more moving blankets and one stuffed cow for Snickers to sleep with.

 

The T-shirts Thompson and Hughet wore in a Facebook post teasing the upcoming adventure told the whole story.

 

One said: “Every road trip has a story.”

 

The other: “That’s a terrible idea … what time?”

 

And, oh by the way, they had to drive fast as September 28 was the grand opening for the new Gye Di facility in Queen Creek, an event Thompson had to be back for and one where she wanted Snickers to make his debut for the kids.

 

The unlikely trio pulled out of Seymour around 8 p.m. on September 24 and began a 31-hour odyssey that Hughet dubbed “#MyCowEpicFinale” for social media posts and even had stickers with Snickers’ face made. Unfortunately, they arrived a day late to make the trip.

 

The first restroom break came at a truck stop in Brazil, Indiana, along Interstate 70, where Snickers made his first fan.

 

“A girl pulled in next to us, and said, ‘That’s a big goldendoodle,’” Hughet recalled.

 

A moment later, the girl realized her mistake.

 

“Oh my god, it’s a cow. Can I pet your cow?”

 

That scene repeated throughout the trip as they stopped every couple of hours to let Snickers be up and about. Sometimes he took advantage of the restroom break. Sometimes he took his own restroom breaks.

 

“He laid down most of the time in the van, but we discovered that after he stands up, you have 30-45 seconds before he goes to the bathroom,” Hughet said. “Overall, he was a great passenger. He would start mooing and talking to us.

 

“He was a star by the time we reached Arizona.”

 

Alternating sleeping and driving in shifts, Thompson and Hughet were relieved when they pulled into the driveway in Queen Creek at 3 a.m. Thursday morning.

 

Welcome to Gye Di

 

Released from the mini-van at last, Snickers found the yard in Arizona very much to his liking, kicking his heels up and galloping around freely in his new fenced-in area.

 

The Highland calf had Thursday and Friday to get acclimated to his new surroundings, although he also took a turn at being a house cow, walking in the back door and curling up in the living room like a dog.

 

He also got to meet Thompson’s dogs – a Great Dane and a Dachsund – and they all went tromping around the yard.

 

Still being bottle-fed, Snickers followed Thompson around like he was a dog, knowing who would feed him when the time came.

 

The warmer weather may have been a bit of a shock, but an open-sided barn area with a large roof that provided a good piece of shade at all times helped. So did a kiddy pool, meant as water to drink, but Snickers found it a cool place to stand and occasionally go to the bathroom.

 

By Saturday the calf was ready to meet some new best friends, and despite some skittishness at first, he quickly adapted to the wave of wheelchairs pulling up and arms reaching to pet him.

 

“These cows are very docile and sweet-natured, so they are perfect therapy animals for my kiddos with complicated bodies,” Thompson said. “Their smaller size allows my kiddos in wheelchairs to be close and personal to them and get the whole experience.”

 

The grand-opening carnival not only featured animals like Snickers but a host of switch-adapted games such as a dunk tank, football toss, fishing game, leafblower game and a duck hunt game.

 

All of those could be played in the traditional way by typical kids and all were switch-adapted so that non-typical children could play with just the push of a button.

 

Gye Di’s Queen Creek facility is not only one of the newest facilities to provide therapy for non-typical children, but one of the few places in the state of Arizona that offers intense therapies.

 

Intense therapy is more than just an hour or two a week. It’s about doing therapy for hours at a time over the course of multiple days, if not a full week.

 

The result for these children ranges from being able to stand for a certain amount of time or sit up a certain amount of time or even just hold their head up.

 

Snickers can not only give them an experience they might not otherwise have but provide motivation and a sense of accomplishment along the way.

 

“It is my hope that Snickers will live a happy life on my farm teaching my kiddos how to do big things,” Thompson said, “and they will learn how to take care of him, communicate with him, and include him into our own adventures. The Snickers adventure is not over, it has just begun.”

 

Snickers is “Their Cow” now.

 

Learn more about Gye Di at gyedi.org or follow them on Facebook and Instagram.