One demerit for failure to use the phrase "surgical precision"

The Post: "Livestock mutilations shake up Gunnison ranching community":

GUNNISON — Recent livestock mutilations have Gunnison area ranchers shaken and on the alert for more strange attacks on cattle and horses.

In recent weeks, a horse was shot and had its head skinned at the LeValley Ranch property, which is part of the Esty Ranch holdings about eight miles east of Gunnison. The horse also had its tongue and anus removed.

Tuuuuuu, what now?

Less than two months ago, a prize heifer in the same heavily traveled area just off of Colorado 50 and Colorado 114 had its tongues [sic], lips and anus removed.

There's that anus again. And now lips along with the tongue(s). Sounds like they're making some kind of sick crazy sex aid, chief. Or maybe finishing out a cow-suit. It rubs the udder balm on its skin, or else something something . . .

"To me it looks like a ritualistic issue. Either that, or they are high on drugs. There is just no logical explanation for it," said Esty Ranch owner Mike Clarke. . . .

I'll stick with the sick crazy sex aid angle.

The four mutilations [in recent months] have prompted the Gunnison County Stockgrowers Association to offer a $500 reward [cheap!] for any information that will lead to a conviction. The Colorado State Patrol has also been alerted to watch for strange activities in that area. The Gunnison County Sheriff's Office, the agency investigating the mutilations, did not return phone calls asking for comment. . . .

The recent mutilations have similarities to mutilations that occurred in the 1960s in neighboring Saguache County. The most famous incident was reported in 1967 when a horse that became known as Snippy [Post link] had its head and neck skinned. Like [sic] in the most recent cases, there was no blood at the scene or tracks. The mutilations were never solved. . . .

Can't believe I'd never heard of Smiley, uh, Snippy, before.

Clarke said if there is another incident he expects "the ranching community will really be up in arms." . . .

Literally.

The story of Snippy (2006), by the way, is majestic. It begins:

She stands quietly at the back of an empty room inside Dell's Insurance Agency just off the main street. She is little more than bones and big shiny teeth. And she is at the center of a controversy involving an eBay auction, lawyers and ownership rights.

Here you might ask the obvious question: What the heck is Nicole Richie doing in a vacant room in an insurance office in a small Colorado potato town?

Of course, it isn't really Nicole Richie (who?) in that cursed Colorado Potato Town (sort of demands caps, doesn't it?) but Snippy! the Peeled-headed Horse! Read on your own time.