Ambiguity in Mob.getTarget() functionality

Expected behavior

While player is tempting animal with food.
Cow cow = EntityMoveEvent.getEntity(); <-- animal
cow.getTarget() <--- returns Player object of player that's doing the tempting

Observed/Actual behavior

cow.getTarget(); is not a Player object

but EntityTargetLivingEntityEvent.getTarget() correctly returns a targeting player
I'm guessing this is due to my observation, which is that cow re-targets the player every two ticks or so.

Steps/models to reproduce

1. Use MWE plugin: https://github.com/kacpermajkowski/AnimalTargetIssueMWE
2. Use commands on the server:

• /gamerule spawn_mobs false
• /gamerule spawn_monsters false
• (multiple times if needed, to be sure no other cows are present) /minecraft:kill @e

3. Spawn a Cow
4. Take wheat in your hand and make the Cow follow you
5. What you see is that checking Mob.getTarget() in EntityMoveEvent returns a non-Player object, and at the same time EntityTargetLivingEntityEvent.getTarget() returns a Player object.

Plugin and Datapack List

[21:40:30 INFO]: ℹ Server Plugins (7):
[21:40:30 INFO]: Paper Plugins (1):
[21:40:30 INFO]: - AnimalTargetIssueMWE
[21:40:30 INFO]: Bukkit Plugins (6):
[21:40:30 INFO]: - ConfigLib, Essentials, EssentialsChat, EssentialsSpawn, HeadDB, Vault

datapack list
[21:40:41 INFO]: There are 3 data pack(s) enabled: [vanilla (built-in)], [file/bukkit (world)], [paper (built-in)]
[21:40:41 INFO]: There are no more data packs available

Paper version

[21:40:49 INFO]: Checking version, please wait...
[21:40:49 INFO]: This server is running Paper version 26.2-26-dev/26.2@193803d (2026-06-21T04:21:03Z) (Implementing API version 26.2.build.26-alpha)
You are 3 version(s) behind
Download the new version at: https://papermc.io/downloads/paper
Previous version: 26.1.2-72-1a6b910 (MC: 26.1.2)

Other

No response

Start by running the linked AnimalTargetIssueMWE with the listed commands and compare Mob.getTarget() in EntityMoveEvent with EntityTargetLivingEntityEvent.getTarget(). Trace the Paper API and entity-target update path to determine which target state each event exposes. Done means the behavior is consistent with the documented contract, or the differing timing and expected usage are clearly documented and covered by a regression test.