Stop that Steer: The adventures of ‘Guppy’

Josie Dickey, 17, acquired the steer (definitely not a cow) at noon on Dec. 27, and it hopped the fence at about 3:30 p.m. that same day.

“It was right as I put him into his pen, he immediately cleared my fence and jumped over it. So I never got to name him,” Josie said. People have suggested swimming-related names — Michael Phelps, Scuba Steve, triathlon — “but I think everybody I know keeps calling him Guppy.”

The steer started with a hop over a five-foot hog wire fence that had railroad ties, Josie said. Then he was put in her second pen, one of several interconnected spaces. Here he was with some “normal” roaming cattle, and the Dickeys weren’t too worried. The steer was still confined, after all. But then ...

“He found the very corner of it and jumped over it,” said Josie. “We knew once he cleared the second one, that he was legitly out. And I live right on the highway ... something bad was gonna happen.”

The Dickeys tried to corral him, but the steer took off up the hillside. Soon the sheriff’s office called to say the steer was running down the highway. “So my dad took off in his truck, and me and my boyfriend took the horse trailer, and we chased him down 14 ... towards Mosier.”

They almost got him cornered at Courtney Road, right outside Bingen. “We had him stopped between the vehicles, but then he shot across the road,” Josie said. The steer jumped the median, scaled the rocky cliff, jumped in the Columbia and started swimming. It was getting dark. “We lost him, and he was already struggling,” she said. “He had run three miles down the road, so we figured he was not going to make it across.”

The next day, Josie’s family went out on a boat, searching the shoreline. “We found nothing, so we just assumed he was gone,” she said.

For five days, the bovine athlete was presumed drowned. “Almost a week had gone by, so we were sure he was dead,” Josie said. “I was convinced.”

Josie’s had “probably eight” show steers, and this one’s the worst. Normally, Josie ties a steer up in her barn and, once they figure things out, they gentle to the hand that feeds them. But this one “knew that that was not for him, and that was not his life, and he did not want to be my best friend.”

She would learn that someone may have spotted Guppy on Chicken Charlie Island, near Mosier. And that sturgeon anglers eventually spooked him off that refuge.

So he guppy’d to Oregon, and resurfaced in front of some more sturgeon anglers, who spooked him up the hillside. “Once he hit the highway, he jumped the median, and he jumped four lanes of traffic, and then the police officers got to him,” Josie said.

For Oregon State Police (OSP) Trooper Michael Holloran, this was the latest of “many ‘cow calls’” he’s responded to in 26 years of service. Holloran’s seen cows get hit by vehicles on highways and freeway — but a steer climbing out of the Columbia was new. A crowd of civilians tried to stop the steer at the highway but “he was wild. At that point, he was so scared he didn’t want to deal with any types of people,” Josie said. Traffic was blocked, with a semi and box truck on the shoulder.

Holloran also tried, turning his patrol car in front of the steer to trap it between box truck and fence. Then he got out and walked behind his car to confront it. “The young steer lowered its head and charged right at me. I very briefly thought about tackling [it] or even trying to grab the lead rope around its head, but I am confident that would have ended badly since I was wearing gloves and it outweighed me by several hundred pounds,” Holloran wrote. “Although I’ve been around farm animals, I’ve never participated in a rodeo.”

Holloran got back in his patrol car, turned on his flashers, and backed up beside the steer to warn oncoming traffic. The steer had kept his halter and rope on, so the people chasing him down I-84 knew he belonged to someone. 

Fortunately, a half-mile after Holloran’s attempt to collar him, “Guppy” turned onto the railroad tracks. Holloran just kept backing up, still blinking, from milepost 69 to about milepost 67.5, keeping “Guppy” off the freeway. When his quarry entered a railroad tunnel, Holloran turned around, backed to the other end, jumped out and got in front of the entrance, hoping to keep the steer inside. “Guppy” wasn’t having that and charged the trooper again, passing him at full speed.

“By this time, I had already contacted a supervisor asking him to attempt to locate the owner or, at the very least, send me a cowboy with a rope,” Holloran wrote. He also told Hood River County dispatch it would be reaching Exit 64 shortly, and could create a hazard at the junction of Highway 35. A civilian following “Guppy” down the tracks put Halloran in touch with the Dickeys, who called their friends and “booked it” to the steer’s location. Hood River Police also joined Holloran’s backwards parade.

Josie remembers the Dickeys pushed the steer toward Hood River while cops drove backwards on the highway with reader boards warning, “COW ON HIGHWAY.” Two Hood River officers on foot, one with a rope, helped the Dickeys and their friends. Union Pacific said they would not stop trains, but did slow them down — and a westbound conductor did stop his train for a bit. Josie was impressed; “I’ve never had a train slow down for anything.” An eastbound train went by early on, and “Guppy” just got out of its way.

The would-be captors with ropes all missed, Holloran wrote. But by the time they reached Hood River, even “Guppy” was worn clean out.

“That’s when I witnessed something phenomenal,” Holloran wrote. “[A] cousin quickly worked her way out in front of the [steer], then walked slowly and quietly up onto the edge of the railroad tracks. The cow was still moving toward her, but then hesitated, slowed and stopped. She stayed perpendicular to the steer with her head turned to the left and didn’t move. The two of them just stood there and looked at each other.

“That’s when the steer’s legs began to shake, it honestly appeared to get weak knees, then boom, it toppled over from exhaustion,” Holloran wrote. “That poor [steer] was clearly stressed, having run, swam and walked who knows how many miles. It had just finished a three or four day triathlon.”

Josie said the steer tried to charge her mom, but tripped over a rock and just fell. The Dickeys roped him up, dragged him into a friend’s trailer and took him home. Josie gave him food, water and medication on minor scratches, and two hours later the athlete was back on his feet and “being a little butthead again.”

Originally purchased for exhibit at Klickitat County Fair, the steer refused to settle after his return. Josie said she knew she couldn’t keep him safe, now that Guppy knew his own abilities. The Dickeys were also afraid of the liabilities of traffic injuries from another highway adventure.

So Josie returned “Guppy” to his breeder’s pasture “with all of his other little cow friends.” He’ll probably be butchered once he grows bigger, she said. “We got really lucky, finally, that he just got tired and just gave up ... we’re really thankful for all the people that came and helped us,” including a couple of Oregon State Police and their friends. “They brought trailers and ropes, and the next thing that we were about to bring was a horse ... but thank god we wrangled him before that happened.”

And although Josie was recognizable among acquaintances that week, after stories appeared in several news outlets, she plans to buy other cows for the fair — calmer ones. “I hope I never have to face that ever again!” she said.

“I told the young lady she should write a book,” Holloran recalled.

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Aziza Cooper-Hovland contributed to this story.