A calf rejected by the herd was raised by dogs (5 photos + 1 video)

9 September 2017

Little James received a brain injury at birth, which affected his behavior - other cows of the Scottish Highland breed literally drove the baby out of the herd. Farmers Adam and Emily Hopson decided to try to get the baby out, so they took him into the house and watered him from their hands. The calf was left on the plot, where he became friends with the dogs. Why, he himself became a big furry puppy!

The brain damage that the calf received led to the fact that it lost some of its reflexes - for example, it could not understand how to suck its mother's udder. In fact, he had to be re-taught everything in a row and, since the dogs involuntarily did this, James is excellent at wagging his tail, trying everything on his teeth, licking his master’s face or cheerfully jumping around, inviting him to play. One problem is that he is still a bull, and not the smallest breed at that, so after just a few months of life he became too big for his dog friends. But it was unrealistic to return him to the herd - the calf’s stupid, from a cow’s point of view, behavior turned him into an outcast.

The Hopsons had a choice: leave the calf in the backyard, where the gentle but large animal would invariably begin to disturb everyone, hand it over to a slaughterhouse, or come up with something else. And they acquired two orphan calves about his age. An ideal company - three outcasts who had never really learned to live in a herd, quickly became friends and began to stick together. They were sent to a pasture, where the trio continued to keep to themselves, but other calves became interested in them. At the same time, the owners created several accounts on social networks on behalf of James, which quickly gained subscribers - everyone likes the cutie calf.