LOCAL Police in a Greater Madrid region town had to rescue a cow who had fallen into a swimming pool and been there for over 24 hours, unbeknown to the property owners.
Irene Larroque says she and her mother had left the house in Camorritos – which they use as a weekend retreat – on Saturday night, and got a call from the police on Monday morning.
“They said, 'there's a cow in your swimming pool',” reports Irene, who at first believed the call to be a hoax.
“We immediately alerted someone we knew who lives nearby, and then sent us a photograph confirming it was true,” she says.
The cow's owner had reported her missing two days earlier, after she broke out of her field.
It appears she had gone searching for water and fallen in the pool whilst drinking from it.
She had been in the water since Sunday morning.
Naturally, she had made a mess of the pool, since she had been unable to avoid answering the call of nature in both its formats in those 24 hours.
But the animal herself was in good health and apparently unscathed by her ordeal.
A crane specially designed for rescuing large animals was brought in, and the cow – after being checked over – was released back into the mountain pasture she lives in to join the rest of her herd.
The farmer's public liability insurance company has been notified so it can pay the costs of draining, cleaning and refilling the swimming pool and of hiring the crane.
Photograph: Cows grazing in a field in Cantabria in northern Spain, similar to the one which fell in the pool in Camorritos
