I've enjoyed this thread and all the cow-related contributions immensely, in spite of the fact that I had a traumatic experience with a cow when I was about three years old. No, I did not live in a rural area, but instead in a South Jersey suburb across the river from Philadelphia. Which was where you went to visit The Philadelphia Zoo.
In that day and age, they had an attraction at the zoo called "Noah's Ark," which was essentially a petting zoo, with rabbits and ducks and goats and sheep and other animals the zoo officials thought suitable for little kids to get up close to ... including a cow. The cow was somehow secured, so it wasn't roaming around trampling on little kids. However, I got close enough that I was able to stand right in front of it, looking up at what seemed to me to be a behemoth.
The cow was looking down at me, too, as I looked up. That was when its monstrous tongue slurped down on my forehead and proceeded to begin munching on my bangs. Long after my parents disengaged me somehow from the beast, and my screams and sobs finally subsided, they told me the cow thought my blonde hair looked tasty because it looked like yellow straw to her. I did not find this soothing.
Nightmares ensued. One early morning approaching dawn I clearly heard it, the sound of a cow mooing, outside in the driveway below my window! It was coming to get me to eat me up! I couldn't help but sit up in bed and scream!!! My mother came running, asking me what was wrong. When I said "there's a cow outside! I can hear it! It's going to get me!" she was initially confused. Years later she told me how upset I got when she started laughing. But in the same way that I couldn't help but scream, she couldn't help but laugh. She figured out that what I had heard was my father snoring in the next room ... He and I both were teased about it for years after.
To this day I can still remember exactly how that giant, rough, sandpaper tongue felt when it slurped against my forehead. Not pleasant! That tongue was at least as large as my whole forehead.