# Evidence of cattle going down stairs **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 1, 2000, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-cattle-going-down-stairs/43594 "2000-12-01T16:54:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2000, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-cattle-going-down-stairs/43594/1 "2000-12-01T16:54:51Z")
OK, this isn’t really a question, but it seems as though this factoid has come up before, questioning its veracity. However, I didn’t find any obvious references to it using the “Search” engine. Anyway, supposedly cattle will walk up stairs, but not down stairs. However. . . In the TV series “Adam-12,” in episode 7.16, title “Ladies’ Night,” originally airing on Feb 8, 1975, one of the adventures that the two cops run into is some cattle that are loose (in LA!). Somehow one of them gets inside a building, and there is a scene in which one of the officers is very casually walking behind the cow down the stairs. (TVLAND ran an Adam-12 marathon recently, and this was one of the episodes that they showed.) ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2000, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-cattle-going-down-stairs/43594/2 "2000-12-01T17:15:20Z")
I don’t believe the factoid. I grew up on a cattle farm. Though I’ve never seen a cow walk down stairs, I have seen them navigate some pretty tough downhill terrain. If they could walk downhill in a rocky area (which I’ve seen them do to get to water), I see no reason they couldn’t navigate stairs. Hmmm…Come to think of it… Didn’t the cops take a cow down the stairs of the frat house in **Animal House**? ---
**Author:** ![funneefarmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2000, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-cattle-going-down-stairs/43594/3 "2000-12-01T17:58:23Z")
We have stairs off one end of the barn going down into a lower level where we occasionally put dry cows, currently it houses calves though. At any rate we used to drive the cows right down these steps into the lower level. They would pause at the top but once they got past that first step they wouldn’t have any problem with the rest of the steps. Note that these steps were somewhat wide at around 2 or 2 and a half feet with about a one foot drop for each step. They were also rough cement making for decent footing. ---
**Author:** ![WIGGUM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ce7236/32.png) [@WIGGUM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WIGGUM)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2000, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evidence-of-cattle-going-down-stairs/43594/4 "2000-12-01T18:04:03Z")
A friend of my dad told me a story one time about how when he went to college in the late 60’s at Temple University in Philadelphia, he and a couple of other gregarious students stole a cow from a farm not to far from campus (how this is possible in Philly I have no idea) anyhoo, they led the cow to their dormatory, and led it up four flights of stairs, no problem, but when campus security came to remove the bovine, they had a hell of a time getting it to go back down. They finally succeeded, but not without the resistance from the cow as it puked all over the stairwell.