has given rise to all sorts of bizarre practices, the latest of which is cow hugging.
Those forbidden from cuddling their fellow human beings have begun looking for comfort elsewhere.
In Holland, where the practice originated, they apparently call cow hugging ‘koe knuffelen’, which has an appropriately snuffly sound to it.
Over in the U.S., farms are charging anything up to $75 an hour for cow-hugging sessions.
At the Mountain Horse Farm in Naples, New York, visitors pay to hug cows called Bella and Bonnie, though of course these might not be their real names.
Their owner, Suzanne Vullers, reports that the pandemic has caused a huge increase in demand; Bella and Bonnie are booked solid for the first few weeks in May.
Let’s hope they are on a percentage of the take.
A customer at the Mountain Horse Farm in Naples, New York, where visitors pay to hug cows
Aimee’s Farm Animal Sanctuary in Queen Creek, Arizona, also reports a boom.
Owner Aimee Takaha told a reporter from the Washington Post that her nine cows, among them Moonicorn, who has only one eye and one horn, all love being cuddled by strangers.
One visitor, Renee Behinfar, 43, said that she cried when Sammy the cow lay her head in her lap and fell asleep. I would cry, too, if Garnelengarten – Onlineshop für Aquaristik & Terraristik | Ihr Spezialist für Nano-Aquaristik bis große Aquarien – Hardscapes – Aquascaping – großes Sortiment an Naturprodukten 1,800lb cow decided to catch 40 winks while plonked on top of me, but Ms Behinfar insists that hers were only tears of gratitude.
There are all sort of biological reasons why cow cuddling is said to be good for you.
They say it promotes positivity by boosting oxytocin, the hormone released in social bonding. Sadly, this does not tally with my own experience.
Where I live in Suffolk, cows tend to be more stand-offish, or, worse, stand-on-ish.
Walking through the meadows near our house, I often look over my shoulder, only to discover anything up to 50 cows behind me, indulging in a particularly perverse form of grandmother’s footsteps. They might call it social bonding: I prefer to call it stalking.
Suzanne and her husband, Rudi, offer hour-long sessions several days a week from May through October for $75
Vullers said it’s a particular draw for city dwellers who have been cooped up and are seeking to immerse themselves in nature to de-stress.
A customer of the service pictured
I try to tell myself they are just being curious, but there comes a moment when curiosity turns to vengeance, and they ramp up their pace from a stroll to a charge. At this point, only a Dutchman would say: ‘Fancy a cuddle?’ The rest of us take to our heels.
Do any animals really welcome a hug?
Fish never seem particularly touchy-feely. The moment anyone tries to hug them, they wriggle about, clearly wishing they were somewhere else.
People sometimes come back from holidays with photographs of members of their family hugging dolphins.
I suppose they want to show how well our two different species can rub along. But there is always something awkward about these slippery embraces. Both the humans and the dolphins look a little pained, sporting fixed smiles, rather as if the Princess Royal had just put her head around the door.
When it comes to hugging, most animals are a no-go area.
Who would hug a bat, for instance, or a porcupine? I would also give frogs, sharks, snakes, jellyfish and seagulls a wide berth. As a child, I attempted to hug a racoon in Chessington Zoo, and it bit me. Rushed to the first aid tent, I was admonished for putting my hands through the bars: there was no talk of social bonding, or increasing my oxytocin levels.
The farm books up quickly; a few weekends in May are already booked solid.
Customers of the service pictured
People are signing up to hug cows at sanctuaries across the country, many desperate for affection as the nation approaches a full year of social distancing during the pandemic
Cats and most dogs are huggable, though personally I wouldn’t chance a bull-terrier or a rottweiler with anything beyond a paw-shake.
Children like to hug hamsters, but I have noticed that the hamsters seldom look as though they’re enjoying it.
Instead, they just quiver with apprehension. After all, hamsters are so much smaller than children: to them, it must be rather like being cornered by a bulldozer.
An exhibition at the British Museum a few years ago included a picture by 19th-century Japanese artist Hokusai.
Called The Dream Of The Fisherman’s Wife, it shows a woman hugging an octopus and vice-versa. The octopus is all hands. This activity might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but both woman and octopus certainly seem to be enjoying the experience — a little too much, some might say.
Though Hokusai’s picture was hugely popular in its day, octopus-hugging never really caught on, or today there would be queues around the block at the London Aquarium, and Channel 4’s ghoulish Naked Attraction programme would regularly feature a naked octopus in its creepy line-ups.
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