Goby the goat

Goby

One day when I was out playing with my dogs and three of the horses (Buster, Diamond and Trigger) in the woods, the dogs went all crazy and disappeared. I didn´t think much of that. I like to have both horses and dogs free and if they want to wander off by themselves that´s OK. I know that they always come back. They did come back and in front of them a strange looking goat! The goat was all terrified and scared to death. It was really difficult to convince the dogs that the goat wasn´t an intruder that they had to chase off. After all they are guard dogs and thought they did a great job bringing the intruder to me. The horses seem to enjoy watching the spectacle. I swear that they were laughing to each other as they watched me trying to keep three guard dogs of the goat. After a lot of persuasion I finally made myself clear and the goat was mine.

I remember that I heard a story of the people that lived here before us, that they had many goats and that one of the billys was wild and disappeared into the woods when they were moving their goats to their new place. I guess he survived in the woods by himself all this time. I roped the goat and thought that I was going to walk him into the yard, feed him and keep him safe from the dogs and wild animals. That wasn´t all that easy! For a goat he was really strong. I wished that I had a saddle or something on one of the horses that I could attached the rope to. I didn´t have that. They were all without halters and saddles. All the animals were very interested in what I was doing. I am pretty stubborn when I set my mind to do something, so I dragged/carried the goat to the yard about ½mile walk uphill. Dogs and horses made a small caravan behind me and we all walked home.

I placed the goat in the horse trailer with water and hay until Philip got home, I was exhausted. When Philip got home we placed the goat in a small pen. My son Joel named the goat Goby. After two days we bought two goat friends for him. We let them spend two more days in the small pen so they could get to know each other. Meanwhile we built a bigger pen for them. The two new goats have a lot of respect for the electric fence and always stay inside the pen. Goby on the other hand jumps in and out but always stays close. We had been talking about getting goats to eat all the weeds around the property. Now we have three! And our plan is to get many more. They are a great help when it comes to clearing the property J