The rules to this contest are completely subjective. You post a comment telling me what you think the reason behind the cow’s behavior is but you have to use as little anthropomorphism as possible. The comment I deem to be the best based solely on my personal opinion will win the t shirt listed below.
So the rules are:
1. Post a comment explaining the cow behavior without applying anthropomorphism to them.
2. Lobbying for your comment, up voting someone else’s comment or adding multiple comments is strongly encouraged.
3. Any belittling or rude comments will be deleted.
4. The winner will be selected by me.
5. Contest results will be posted by midnight on June 1, 2015.
The shirt: 
It comes in other colors and of course different sizes. You can see more about it at the iheartdogs website.
A Vet's View 
Cows are very smart. This is learned behavior. They see people doing these actions and get a positive result from it (getting water, getting out of the pen, etc) so they mimic the persons actions to get the desired result.
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Thanks for the comment Stephanie! You’re the first to enter. Curious to see how this goes. Hope all is well.
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Guess #2 cows love salt. After licking the salt left behind from hands on the handles of the various items, they turned the handles unknowingly ( cow tongues are made to be extremely strong to pull grass as they do not have top front teeth) and had a positive reaction.. Freedom, food, water, and so learned to do these actions.
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I agree with Stephanie that cows are smart. The cleverest of us all will find novel ways to get our needs and desires met!
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You’re right of course. Those are clever cows! Thanks for posting.
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These cows have been specially trained by their handlers to perform for the camera in an effort to usurp cat videos on youtube and demonstrate to the world that cows are also cute. Because they are!
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I like that!I would definitely watch more cute cow videos.
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Hey you won! Please shoot me an email with your mailing address and shirt size. I’ll order your shirt today. Thanks for playing.
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Huzzah! I am so excited!
It could be I just missed it but I can’t find any contact details for you on your blog?
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All of these cows learned how to gain a reward by performing certain tasks.
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Simple but effective. Glad to see you here Patti.
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Dairy cows in a clever, but cute attempt to avoid being culled due to a drop in milk production.
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I don’t know. I’ve known too many cows who had to get on a truck because they couldn’t get the job done. Excellent theory though. Thanks for reading!
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Automated dairy farming. If you want something done right, let the cows do it for themselves! But growing up in smalltown, rural USA, I’d have to say that there are very many distractions surrounding the cows. They have watched and learned this rote as well as repetitive behavior from their handlers & caretakers. Whatever it is or ain’t… It’s super cool!
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*Typo– aren’t very many distractions.
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These seem like learned responses that originated not from humans training the cows, but from:
Cow sees thing -> cow licks/nudges thing -> positive outcome happens (water, opening of door/gate, food) -> cow associates licking the thing and the positive outcome.
And the innate urge to lick things comes from their habit of getting various nutrients they need from licking dirt/rocks/bones/salt-licks etc.
Whatever the explanation, they’re pretty clever haha
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