It's.... humiliating, to be a cow. To be an animal. Livestock. Cattle.

The Ring Master had made it very clear. This was a punishment. For his own disgraceful behaviour. His willful disobedience.

A public shaming... but also a secret one. He's still trying to decide how he feels.... how he's supposed to feel. Should he be honoured? Grateful that she graced him with her personal disapproval? Proud--and therefore deeply ashamed--that he was so terrible at following even simple instructions (even if he had a perfectly good reason, he thought--but that was just it, of course, his thinking was flawed, it was always flawed, he should have known--)

Maybe it's a good thing that all anyone sees while he goes over and over this, over and over and over... is a cow, standing emptily in a pen.

Ginko's arrival is... a distraction. Foster isn't expecting to be spoken to directly. Some people have mooed at him or whatever. It's annoying, but for the first time, he's not even expected to react to them. It's....

Well.

It's annoying. There's no really salvaging that.

He turns his heavy, drop-eared head to regard Ginko with large brown eyes, but says nothing.

.... hopefully Ginko isn't expecting anything else.