To set this story in the proper time and place, I have to take you back to my teen years. Back a few years to my first encounter with a goat. I was visiting a friend on the outskirts of the City. Margaret was getting us some nice cold drinks while I sat on the back steps of her house. She lived right next to a farm that had a pen full of goats, and I could see them from the steps. There looked to be at least a dozen of them milling around, as goats do.

All of a sudden I heard a noise at the side of the house, and out walked a little black goat. I was amazed and just sat there. We looked at each other, and then it came up to me...and yes this is true...it sat on my lap, and sniffed my face. I was later to learn that this was common behavior for goats, they do it in order to smell your face. I laughed and put my arms around the creature. I loved animals and always wanted to be a veterinarian.

From that day on, I vowed to one day have a goat of my own. I never forgot its weird eyes. The pupils of goats, and sheep for that matter, are horizontal. I thought they would make great pets. Time went by, and I got married and went to live on a farm. But I never forgot my vow.

One thing I have found, if you plant the seed of an idea beforehand, it usually works out just fine. So I told my hubby Ed I wanted a goat. We had cattle, so there was no problem with housing one little goat. But, as it turned out, there weren't any goat farms around where we lived. As usual, I just had to bide my time. I knew something would come up. It always does.

One day in Feburary, I had decided to visit my Mom who lived about 335 km from us. While staying with her, I decided to go and visit Margaret. It had been ages since I had seen her. So off I went, and we had a great time catching up. She still lived on the outskirts of the City, having married her high school sweetheart.

When we got to talking about old times, I brought up the goat incident and how I never forgot it. She then told me she knew of some people that had a goat for sale. I said, "Oh my God! Really? What kind is it?" She said it was a Boer goat, which is a meat type goat, and they can get big, we're talking huge. The billy goats can get up to 250 lbs.

Well, I had to see it, so I told her, "Lets go." We jumped into my car and in no time were driving up the lane to the farm. There was an old barn and a lot of things in the yard. I didn't have any idea what they were used for. The lady of the house, Sue, came out to greet us. Margaret waved to her and introduced me.

We soon got to chatting about the goats, particularly the one she had for sale. We walked over to a pen beside the barn. The pen held three goats, two really big males, that were brown with splashes of white on them. The third one was a female, a nice warm mahogany brown and a lot smaller. That one, Sue told me, was the one for sale. The three of them were siblings and the female had to be hand reared because her mom had rejected her. By the way, goats have just two tits, so it was probably a survival mechanism. “Survival of the fittest” sort of thing. Sue said she would make a great pet, since she thought she was more human than goat. She was only a year old. I said I would take her and quickly made her out a cheque right on the spot.

Then, I made arrangements to pick her up in a few days when I was going back home. When Margaret and I got back into my Grand Am, we looked at each other and laughed out loud. How was I supposed to travel with an animal the size of a very tall dog? She was at least 70 lbs and reached up to my hips at the shoulder. Three and a half hours in such a small car with a goat? Maybe I was crazy!

My brain was going a mile a minute, not only did I have to travel with a barn yard animal for over 3 hours, in a small car, but how was I going to break the news to my husband Ed? The last part was the easiest. I decided that I wasn't going to tell him until I got home. I thought it would be better that way.

I took Margaret back home and drove back to my Mom's. When I told her my good news, for some reason her reaction wasn't very positive.

She kept on saying things like; “Are you crazy?” and “Why don't you buy a goat near your farm?”

I told her, “Because I want this goat and everything is going to turn out just fine”. She knew that once I got an idea in my head, there was no getting it out, so she just gave up.

When I was talking to Ed that night on the phone, I said “Hi Hon...” in that voice I have when there is trouble brewing. He picked up on it right away and said; “Now what did you do?” I told him “Nothing, I was just looking at some goats”.

Which was the truth!

A few days later, I said my goodbyes to Mom and drove out to the farm to pick up my goat. Sue saw right away that it was going to be a tight fit, to get the goat into the back seat of my car. She found a huge box and we put plastic on the seat, and put the box inside. Now we went to get the goat. She was good about being led to the car, but didn't want to get in. At first we tried bribing her with some grain, and when that didn't work we tried pushing from behind. That wasn't working either.

In the end I had to get inside and pull on the rope on her neck while Sue pushed on her rear. We must have made quite the sight. Then we put some holes in the box for air and I said my goodbyes and got in the car. Once I was on the highway, I was able to look back at the box and see if my new goat was okay. I heard movement when I talked to her, so I assumed she was ok. Three and a half hours later, I drove into the yard. I looked around, and seeing no sign of Ed, I drove close to a small building I had been using for ducks . It was just beside the barn.

I really hadn’t thought this through. There were the two large dogs that we had at the time, and they were not tied up. And I had a very frightened goat in the car . I had to get her out of it and into the goat house, as I would be later calling it. I opened the box enough to be able to pull her out. The dogs had their faces right where I didn't want them to be.

Now I realized my mistake. I should have tied up the dogs first, because the female was trying to take a chunk out of my poor goat. This was a disaster in the making. I had her out of the car now and I knew if she got away from me the dogs would kill her. The rope was too loose to hang onto. I grabbed her by the back ankles and hung on for dear life, at the same time yelling at the dogs to keep away. God, what it all must have looked like.

I ended up having to drag the poor thing backwards to the goat house, and pulled her inside shutting the door behind us. I was so out of breath by now all I could do was lean against the wall and look at the goat. Her eyes were bulging and she was shaking all over. I knew I could have handled the whole thing a lot better. After I got my breath back, I quietly talked to her for a few minutes, then left. She needed to calm down, as I did. When I bought her I was told she was pregnant and was due in early April. I sure hoped she wouldn't lose the kids because of the way things just went down.

Now I looked at those two dogs, and had to make a plan on introducing them safely to the newest member of the group. I looked at the car and went over to it, to take out the box and plastic on the seat. Ewww, the box was wet. She must have peed in it. Not surprising, really, as it had been a long trip. As I later found out, when goats get nervous, excited, or scared, they pee!

Just then Ed drove into the yard. I thought “uh oh”, as he walked towards the car. I said “Hi hun, how are you”? He looked at me and said, “I am good, but wondering why you have the car in front of the barn”? “Well, come over here and I will show you”. So I led him to the goat house and opened the door revealing the goat. He took one look at her then turned his head towards the car and said, “You brought a stinking goat in the car?” I said yup, I will air the car out, and you will never know I had a goat in there”. He looked at me, shook his head as usual at my shenanigans and walked off. So all was well! Well, eventually. I had finally got my goat and that was a good thing, in my book.

I will leave how I got the dogs and goat together to another story, along with her pregnancy.