Tired bull freed of unwanted head gear

After 24 uncomfortable hours, Skywalker the bull was freed from his tractor tire around sundown Tuesday, rancher Paige De Ponte said. Her son, Scott, and a ranch hand used a crowbar to lever the huge tire off the exhausted animal's head and horns. Skywalker headed straight for the water trough. Baxter Black, the cowboy poet and former large animal veterinarian, consulted by telephone at his home in Arizona, suggested a dose of animal anesthetic, followed by cutting the tire with a chain saw. "You'll ruin your chain saw." But De Ponte said Skywalker, a rough, tough rodeo bull that's never been ridden, was so tired he submitted to some levering and pushing as a half dozen men maneuvered the tire off his horns. He has been polled, but he has short horns...more