Trego's Mountain Ear

The things I don’t know about goats would fill books. But it has been great watching my community spontaneously move into action, small group by small group to do something about two shaggy goats that moved onto the Ant Flat Ranger Station just in time for the Christmas season.

In some ways their rescue was a bit of a comedy – first the challenge was finding the owner who had lost them, then the assumption was that they had been abandoned. Then the explanation – they had been wandering on their own for most of the year. Renata and I drove down to see them – the long, shaggy coats testified that they had been on their own for a long while. When I stepped out of the car and walked toward them, they ran around the building – but when I turned back to the car, they followed. However long they’ve been on their own, the pair remembered that humans are good creatures.

And I watched the informal organization on the Trego, Fortine, Stryker Facebook page. First it was folks searching for an owner, folks bringing goat snacks to the old Ranger Station. Then the annoyance at animals being abandoned – and finally the individuals coming forward with determination, a pickup and horse trailer to rescue the goats.

The rescue didn’t go smoothly – one goat was captured and hauled to a safe place – which left the other alone. Some of the folks who had been following the goats started to chime in on the errors. Now I wasn’t part of the rescue – or of the critics of the rescuers – but there is a little that I do know about goats:

First, goats are herd animals. A lone goat is not a happy goat. Same as cows and horses, they are social animals. Second, goats are easier to catch when you let them catch themselves. Third, a goat’s pupils are different than ours – they’re kind of like horizontal rectangles. It makes for absolutely fantastic peripheral vision. The book tells me that, without moving their heads, they can see in 340 of a circle’s 360 degrees. A cat’s vertical pupils help the cat to succeed as an ambush predator. The goat’s horizontal pupils make them downright difficult to ambush or sneak up on.

Facebook reads like the second goat was captured by a couple of women who brought their own goat along – demonstrating to him that they are trustworthy. The photo shared on Facebook showed some pretty respectable ropes around him after he had been caught.

But the story isn’t about the goats – the story is about the high quality of our neighbors. These are people who will go the extra mile because a couple of goats don’t have a home. These are the same people who will rescue kittens and elderly dogs – in spades. I live in a good neighborhood with good neighbors. I didn’t see anyone calling on the government to fix the problem – I saw people who observed animals in distress, chose to act, and by the time they were done, two goats have a home for new year. They may have been homeless at Christmas – but my hat’s off to the neighbors who took the initiative to get the goats a home for their future.