My wife grew up on a farm and every year they'd raise a steer for meat. My father-in-law, being very...um...frugal, would never buy a real beef animal to feed up. Instead, he'd find a male calf of whatever variety turned up that was...inexpensive.
One year he found what he considered a really great animal to raise - a cross between a Charolais (beef animal) and a Holstein (big dairy animal). He was duly fixed and turned out in the pasture with the dairy cows to fatten up until his appointment with the butcher came around.
He was soon as big as the smaller dairy cows - and not long after he was as big as the medium sized dairy cows - and eventually he was bigger than the biggest of the ladies - which, given that they were Holsteins and Brown Swiss, means he was a BIG DANG ANIMAL.
Soon he was too big to have around the cows so he was put into his own pasture every morning. And that's where he learned to...play.
His idea of "play" was to come up snorting and pawing to anything and everything that ventured, however briefly, into his pasture. He never actually hurt anybody - but he sure promised to do so, and nobody stuck around long enough to find out if he meant business or was just kidding around.
Well, one day my wife, who was then about 12 years old, had to get from here to there on the farm and, not seeing him in his pasture, decided to cut across it. Bad idea - because pretty soon she heard the sound of hooves thudding across the pasture behind her, getting closer and closer. She said to herself, "I am NOT going to run from this thing!", and reached down into the grass and picked something up.
Well, up came this steer, until he was right behind her where he stopped and let out a loud warning "SNOORRRT!". My wife whipped around, reached back, swung - and cracked that steer right across the nose with the 2x4 she'd picked up from the grass. The steer dropped to his knees, crossed his eyes, and let out a loud and rather pained bellow.
Bleeding badly from the nose he got back to his feet, staggered a bit, and then decided that there was something very interesting elsewhere in the pasture, and he was going to go investigate it very gingerly. My wife continued across the pasture - and from that day on, right up until that steer became freezer beef, he would not mess with her. She'd step into his pasture and he'd find reasons to be elsewhere. Anywhere. Just not around that little one. She bites! :-)
Tl;Dr
Point of the story - a 2x4, applied properly, works wonders on the most recalcitrant bovine. Only use in times of dire necessity, because an animal that's mistreated will soon become dangerous - but if you need to, make it count. (I'll point out that we raise goats, and I've never felt need to raise a hand to them. Grabbing them by the horns and holding their head steady right next to my leg is all the discipline they need. But they only weigh 100 - 150 pounds instead of the 1000+ pounds of a bovine).
