Meet Veronica.
This 13-year-old Swiss Brown cow lives in the village of Netsch at the foot of the Carinthian Alps in southern Austria. A farmer keeps her as a pet, and Veronika is free to roam the meadow as much as she wants and enjoys it.
Like many pets, she likes to have her back scratched. If there are no people around, no problem — Veronika reaches for a brush or stick and scratches herself.
This made her the first cow recorded to use an object as a tool on her own body.
Moreover, when offered a floor brush, Veronica used both sides — depending on which part of her body she wanted to scratch.
This is considered “multipurpose tool use,” a behavior that has so far only been scientifically recorded in chimpanzees in central Africa (and in humans).
Veronica's behavior was recorded and analyzed by Alice Auersperg and Antonio Osuna-Mascaro of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. They published the results in a new study in the journal Current Biology on January 19, 2026.
Real cow or artificial intelligence?
Auersperg, an expert on animal behavior and innovation, published a book on the subject in February 2025. After that, she was inundated with messages from people claiming to have noticed innovative behaviors in their pets, cats, or birds.
One video, however, caught her attention in particular. It shows a brown cow using an old rake to scratch her back, in an idyllic Austrian village.
She and Osuna-Mascaro traveled to the village of Neč, to Veronika's home, to verify the authenticity of the footage. Because, in an age where artificial intelligence is everywhere — who can guarantee that that cow really exists?
"We can never trust anecdotal evidence," Auersperg says. "It could be a deepfake, or it could be a highly trained behavior."
So they decided to see the cow using the tool with their own eyes.
It turns out that Veronika is very real. Her owner, Vitkar Vigele, used to keep Veronika's mother as a pet. Now it's Veronika who makes loud noises when she sees Vigele coming.
The cow chooses different ends of the brush for different purposes
Auersperg and Osuna-Mascaro spent time with the Vigela family, watching Veronica in action, all while eating lots of apple strudel.
After a few days, Auersperg returned to Vienna, but Osuna-Mascaro remained in the village for several weeks, during which he conducted 70 experiments with the cow.
In them, Veronika repeatedly demonstrated the multi-purpose use of tools using a floor brush that the researcher gave her.
"Veronica preferred the end with the fibers to the handle — she used it two and a half times more often," Osuna-Mascaro told DW.
She used that end, with the bristles, to scratch the back of her body and upper back in long, sweeping motions.
“But she also occasionally used the handle,” says the researcher. “At first we thought it was a mistake. However, it turns out that she also used that end meaningfully — to scratch parts of her body where the skin is softer and more sensitive, such as the udder, umbilical cord, and stomach.”
When she used the handle, Veronika also changed her movement pattern — she poked more than she pulled the tool.
"We just assume that cows are stupid"
Osuna-Mascaro says meeting Veronica was an "intense experience."
"Cows sometimes act a bit like cats," he says. "They're not like dogs, who come right up to you. You have to earn their trust."
But why is one cow in rural Austria exhibiting behavior that has never been observed — or at least not been scientifically recorded — in any other species of cattle?
First, animal behavior researchers haven't paid much attention to cows.
"Veronica is not some exotic species that we would expect to use tools," says Auersperg. "Cows are domesticated animals that were domesticated 10.000 years ago. They're all around us. We just assume they must be stupid because they're cattle."
But Veronica's ability to use tools suggests that humans may have seriously underestimated cows. Auersperg and Osuna-Mascaro don't believe this is an isolated case, either.
“We don’t think Veronica is the Einstein of beef,” says Auersperg.
She and her colleague believe that Veronika's life circumstances were decisive.
"Unlike almost every other cow on the planet, Veronica is not kept for milk or meat production, but is a beloved pet," says Auersperg.
According to her owner, it took Veronica years of practice with sticks to perfect the use of the scratching tool. Most cows don't even live to be 13 years old.
"She is a pet, she had a rich environment, lots of objects around her to play with, and she was allowed an exceptionally long life," says Auersperg.
"We have absolutely no evidence that cows are stupid animals," she adds. "The fact that these abilities have not been noticed may have something to do with the way we treat them."
Maybe we'd see more cows using tools — if we gave them more freedom to roam and explore the world around them. Like Veronica...
The natural lifespan of cattle ranges between fifteen and thirty years. The world record is held by the famous Big Bertha, a cow that lived with her owner in Ireland for 48 years and nine months.
The difference between natural and industrial lifespans is drastic: cattle raised for meat live for one or two years - and then go to slaughter. Dairy cows live on average between four and six years. Bulls for breeding can live for about five years.
Bonus video:
