A back scratching bovine has forced scientists to reassess the intelligence of cattle. Veronika, a brown Swiss cow from the Austrian village of Carinthia, shocked researchers with the first documented case of a cow working out how to scratch itself with a stick. The clever creature also recognizes family members' voices and hurries to meet them when called. Witgar Wiegele, an organic farmer and baker who has kept Veronika as a pet for more than 10 years, said she began playing with wooden sticks before she started to scratch herself. Dr. Alice Auersperg, a cognitive biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, said the findings highlight how assumptions about livestock intelligence may reflect gaps in observation rather than genuine cognitive limits. "When I saw the footage, it was immediately clear that this was not accidental,” said Auersperg. She pointed out that the cow’s behavior was a meaningful example of tool use in a species that’s rarely considered from a cognitive perspective. In a series of controlled trials, a deck brush was placed on the ground in random orientations to see which end Veronika chose and which part of her body she targeted. Across repeated sessions, her choices were consistent and suited to the body regions she was scratching. "Veronika is not just using an object to scratch herself, she uses different parts of the same tool for different purposes and she applies different techniques depending on the function of the tool and the body region,” noted Auersperg. Researchers suggest that Veronika’s long lifespan and daily contact with humans may have created the conditions needed for exploratory behavior. Perhaps the real absurdity lies not in imagining a tool-using cow, but in assuming such a thing could never exist.
