HOST: Halo, thoughtful viewers, and welcome to today’s Vegetarianism: The Noble Way of Living, featuring the fascinating inner lives and high intelligence of our herbivore friends, the cows.

These graceful bovines have great curiosity, enjoy solving problems, interact with their environment, teach one another lessons and have good memories. Cows also form long-term relationships and mourn the loss of loved ones.

Supremem Master Ching Hai: The cows, they can cry ;when you want to kill them, they cry. Many of them do that. And some even run to the police to take refuge. They do know what to do.

HOST: Today, scientists are discovering that cows can understand cause-and-effect relationships, a sure sign of advanced cognitive abilities. A cow can quickly learn how to push a lever with her nose to get water or press a button with her head to get food.

Recently, scientists have also learned that these animals actually enjoy the challenge of solving intellectual problems. Researchers at Cambridge University hid some food behind a closed door to see if the cows could discover how to get their reward, while an encephalograph measured their brain waves.

Not only did the cows easily resolve the problem, but showed considerable excitement in doing so.
Veterinary Professor Donald Broom says that when the cows successfully opened the door, “The brainwaves showed their excitement; their heartbeat went up, and some even jumped into the air.

We called it their Eureka moment.”These gentle beings love life and do not want to die, with many reports showing that cows go to great lengths to save their lives.

Consider Maxine, for example, a beautiful Hereford from the United States. On Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007, Maxine was sighted running down the streets of Queens in New York City, USA. Destined for slaughter, she had miraculously managed to escape and was literally running for her life.

The frightened cow was eventually caught by police and firefighters, who brought her to Animal Care and Control in Manhattan.

A team from Farm Sanctuary heard about Maxine’s plight, and offered to let her live out her life in peace and tranquility on their 175-acre facility.

The story of this brave cow's dash for freedom touched the hearts of many people, and the following video has been graciously provided courtesy of Joshua Katcher and Farm Sanctuary.