At Animal Rahat’s new sanctuary, the bullocks are enjoying something that most of them have never experienced since the day they were born: living entirely rope-free. Owners of working bullocks thread ropes through the animals’ noses and tie more ropes around their faces and necks so that they can be easily controlled. When they come to Animal Rahat, we immediately remove the painful nose ropes, but until now, we’ve always had them wear either a comfortable harness or a loose neck rope because it made it easier to handle them when we needed to. However, at the new sanctuary, there is less of a need for this.

Above are some of the newly “naked” bullocks enjoying grass brought by the monsoon rains. Can you imagine how good it must feel to be free of the tug of those encumbrances for the first time in their lives?

Also pictured above is Kalu, a water buffalo who came to us as a tiny calf in a bicycle basket many years ago. As their name implies, water buffaloes love water. The best we could do along those lines at our old Home for Retired Bullocks was provide mud wallows, so we were all excited to see how Kalu would react after he was transferred to the sanctuary and saw that the rains had created a full-fledged pond. He is pictured above taking the first swim of his life as everyone cheered.