A cow named Maggie turned heads across Carmel over the weekend, trotting down roadways while police, sheriff's deputies and state troopers tried everything short of a rodeo to bring her home. The 4-year-old animal escaped from Little Cabins Farm and spent days roaming Putnam County, at one point even dodging an officer's attempt to lasso her straight from the window of a patrol car.
A Cow on the Loose Through Two Towns
According to News 12 Westchester, Maggie escaped and ran loose in Carmel over the weekend, with a viewer capturing video of the 4-year-old cow roaming the area as officers and others worked to bring her safely home. The New York Post reported that witnesses saw Maggie bounding down a road and shouted at her from their cars as the chase unfolded through the Putnam County suburb. Little Cabins Farm, located in Carmel, later confirmed Maggie was safe.
Per the station's report, an officer was seen attempting to lasso Maggie through the window of a police vehicle as she moved down the roadway, but the cow kept going. Maggie continued to roam the Carmel-Kent area despite repeated attempts to corral her, according to Mid Hudson News, which reported she was spotted along Route 301 in both Carmel and Kent as well as along Routes 6 and 52 in the county seat.
Why She Was So Hard to Catch
Little Cabins Farm's owners brought Maggie to Putnam, and a farm spokesperson said she was brand new to Carmel and had decided to check out the neighborhood before settling into her new home, the same outlet noted. That unfamiliarity may explain why standard roundup tactics kept failing: the farm said Maggie wasn't trained to follow feed or be led by a rope, which made catching a scared 700-pound cow harder than it might seem.
The search for Maggie wasn't a one-agency job. Carmel and Kent police, Sheriff's Department personnel, state troopers and New York State DEC Police were all on the lookout for her, per the Mid Hudson News report. To coax her home, farm staff even traveled to Massachusetts, where Maggie originally came from, to bring her calf back to Putnam in hopes the baby would encourage his mother to return.
A Happy Reunion, and a Familiar Scene Elsewhere
The plan worked. Maggie has since been safely reunited with her calf and is back home, News 12 Westchester reported. It capped an ordeal that, per the New York Post, saw her being pursued for four days before officers finally brought her to a stop.
Carmel's runaway bovine wasn't an isolated case this month. Just days earlier, an escaped cow led police on a chase through a Maryland neighborhood before fleeing into the woods and making its way onto a busy highway, according to UPI. That cow was spotted wandering on Hambleton Court in Pikesville after squeezing through a head gate and escaping her enclosure, farm owner Tom Baum said. Police and another local farm owner eventually cornered and roped her next to a Jersey wall along Interstate 695, with Baum reporting the cow was exhausted but otherwise uninjured — he added that a new fence would be installed to prevent future escapes.
