Well, I now finally had my goat. I had waited for this for an awfully long time. There was just one problem now. How was I going to get the dogs to accept her and vise versa ? I lay in bed that night, thinking up different scenarios, on how it was going to go down. The first thing I had to do was get her to trust me. That wasn't going to be easy, since I scared the living daylights out of her by dragging her around by the back legs.

I knew that bribery and patience was the way to go. As for the dogs, well that would have to be a whole other plan. First things first. So in the morning, I got dressed, and after feeding the dogs I got some lettuce, an apple and various other goodies and walked over to the building aka; later to be known as the goat house.

When I opened the door, making sure she couldn't get past me, I saw that she looked a lot better than when I left her the day before. She had drank the water and eaten the hay I had left for her. That was a good sign. So I came in and closed the door behind me, making sure it was secure. Then I sat down on a small stool, and just quietly talked to her.

At first her eyes got big, and she kept as far as she could from me. I just kept on quietly talking and after awhile, she seemed to relax a little. So I offered her some of my treats. She was suspicious, but as I was to learn, she had a great weakness for goodies. So it wasn't long before I had her eating out of my hand. As she ate, I was able to pet her and touch her all over. I then took out a brush out of my pocket and proceeded to brush her. This went over very well with her.

Her name came to me suddenly, as names usually came to me with pets. I decided to call her Rianna. Don't ask me where that came from, it just popped into my head. After awhile I got up to leave, as I did she got nervous again. I reassured her that all was good, and took my leave making sure the door was secure.

The two dogs, Allysa and Brock had been at the door the whole time and as soon as I opened it, their noses were in the crack. I quickly slipped out and shut the door behind me. I looked down at the two of them saying, "Now what am I going to do with the two of you?" They just smelled my hands and clothes, having never come across the scent of goat before.

So for the next few days I locked up the dogs whenever I took Rianna for a walk. I had put a dog collar on her and a long rope. That way she could walk around and get to know her new home and I could still have control of her. It worked very well. I still didn't know how to introduce the dogs to her. I didn't think they would hurt her, but if she ran, it just might turn ugly.

Brock is a huge dog, weighing in at 100 lbs. He is a mix , mostly Airdale, I don't know where he got his size, most Airdales are around 50 lbs. He is really a great boy, more like a clown than anything. I picked him up at the city pound, he had been on death row, since he had been there for one month. But that's another story.

While Allyssa is only about 65 lbs, and half Husky and Airdale. She has a quiet personality and has a very sweet nature. I got her at 8 weeks old. Both dogs are considered high predatory dogs.

The next day, I saw that Ed had parked the old pickup truck near the barn, so before letting Rianna out, I put the two dogs in the front seat. That way, they could see her move around and she would be safe. This went on for another two days. What was I supposed to do now? Then it came to me, and I went to the barn and got a long chain out. I then attached each end to a dog. Now they were chained together but could walk around. I could stop them with a command, and still have control of Rianna.

I have to say, my heart was beating fast when I let the dogs out, and then Rianna. The dogs eagerly went for the goat, I held their chain back and let go of Rianna's rope. Then I walked the dogs over to her, telling them to behave. They sniffed her butt and the rest of her body. Then settled down somewhat. This went on for another day. Rianna didn't seem to mind them. Being reared by humans, she must have thought I would protect her.

Then step two went into action. I put Brock into the truck and let Allysa walk with the chain, but loose. The two girls got along fine. Then I switched dogs and now it was Brock's turn. All was calm and went well. I really couldn't believe it could all go so smoothly, but it seemed to be just like that. A few more days like this and I was able to let both dogs go free with Rianna on the rope. Just to be safe. After the initial sniffing, the dogs went about the usual day, and that meant hanging around me when I was outside.

Baby steps is the way to go, and in no time the three of them were together all the time. I do have to say, Rianna stuck to the dogs more than the other way around. But it worked and I was happy.

The one fly in the ointment was the cows. They really didn't like the goat, I guess her strange scent just was too much for them. The worst one was my Brown Swiss Arlene. If Rianna went into the cow pen, following the dogs of course, Arlene would go after her. Lucky for Rianna, she was quicker. This went on for a long time, so Rianna just stuck with the dogs. It was funny to watch her follow them around and lay down near them when they took a nap.

Meanwhile, I had been going online to learn all I could about goats, their feet, and of course all about kidding. Turns out, it's not like cows at all. You don't have any leeway from when contractions start . If the kids don't come out...within one hour, they won't survive. With cows you have much more time.

Since I was told she was due at the beginning of April, I started to get up during each night from about mid march, just to be on the safe side. As the time went on, Rianna got bigger and bigger, I couldn't give her enough greens. She got so round at one point, I thought she was going to explode. I saw one day when she was laying on her side, her legs stuck out of her body like a balloon, wish I had taken a picture.

Her due date came and went, I still dragged myself out of bed, each night around 12 or 1am. Then finally on May 10th when I went to check her, she was in labor. This was at 12 midnight and I didn't know how long she had been pushing. I watched for about 15 minutes and saw that there was no progress.

Then I ran back to the house, woke Ed up and said, "Rianna's in labor and we need to get her to the vets." Ed had a look at her and agreed, then went to get the trailer hitched up to the truck while I called the vet . He said he would be at the clinic when we got there. So I went back outside and slowly walked her to the trailer and off we went. We arrived at the vets in about 20 minutes.

When she was examined, we were told that she had to have a c-section because the she was too small for the kid inside of her. I was about to see my first c-section. Rianna was put on a table and I helped to hold her down while the vet gave her a shot to freeze the area that she would be cutting. By the way, it seems that livestock is not put under like humans. The vet made the incision through several layers of skin, muscle, and finally the womb. She reached in and started to pull out the kid, but then realized that the cut was too small, so she pushed the kid back in and made a longer incision. Then she went back in, and pulled the feet and then a head come out, and the rest of him.

The vet handed the kid to Ed, while she went back in to see if there were anymore kids in there. There wasn't so she got to work on sewing up all the different layers she had to cut through to get to the kid. That would take her a lot longer than getting the kid out did. At least 30 minutes, and only one minute to get the kid out.

The first thing I noticed was that the kid's ankles were the same size Rianna's. Kids are usually born twins or at times triplets. Singles are not as common. And they should weigh about 4 or 5 lbs. I guess I fed Rianna too well, 'cause she built a monster kid that weighed a whopping 11 lbs. But he was nice and healthy and had no trouble getting his first breath.

He was a nice chocolate brown and as soon as Rianna was sewn back up, we packed them up and took them home. I named him Danny-Boy. He looked like a very long legged rabbit. Boer goats have long floppy ears like rabbits. By the time we got them settled down in the goat house it was 4:00 am. We were bushed and just fell into bed. But it was all worth it, we now had two goats and I was excited to see them in the morning.

We got up at our usual time, one never sleeps late on the farm. So after coffee and breakfast I went to see the how Danny-Boy and his mom were doing. I found him having his breakfast and smiled. After he was done, I took him outside for a little walk. Because of his big size, his little front legs were bowed. He really did look funny, but I knew they would straighten out in time. The dogs were very interested in the new wee goat, Rianna was a bit nervous at first but soon settled down and started to graze. Danny followed his mom around, and then finally lay down for a nap as all babies like to do.

Danny-Boy grew up to be a wonderful gentle giant. He eventually got to be around 240 lbs. I would put little kids on his back for a ride. He would never try to get them off, it was like he knew he had to stand quietly . One very nice thing was that Danny was polled just like his mom. That means they both had no horns, just two bumps where horns would have been.

They made a nice addition to my pets and gave us lots of love and laughs along the way.