Meet Howdy Doody, the steer who rides shotgun in his owner’s car

 

On Wednesday morning, Capt. Chad Reiman was sitting in his Norfolk, Neb., office when he heard radio traffic that immediately piqued his interest. There was a report about a car driving through the city’s downtown area with a cow inside of it.

Reiman “just had to see it for myself because it seemed so unusual,” he told The Washington Post. He drove to the scene, where he found a fully grown, black-and-white dappled steer with long protruding horns riding shotgun in his owner’s modified Ford Crown Victoria sedan.

“It was quite a big surprise,” said Reiman, with the Norfolk Police Division. “We were all kind of expecting it to be a smaller animal, like a calf, that would actually fit into a vehicle, not the large animal that we actually discovered there.”

The animal was Howdy Doody, a 2,200-pound, 9-year-old Watusi-longhorn mix steer who’s more dog-like than fierce fighting bull. His owner, Lee Meyer, said Howdy Doody enjoys going on walks on a leash, getting treats and, yes, feeling the wind rush past his face when they go on rides. Howdy Doody also knows some commands, such as “back up” and “come here.”...more