Christmas Day presented us with a bit of a challenge. We wanted to spend the day with our family out at the coast. Our young goats, however, have recently learned how to escape from their paddock. They don’t go far. They just want to find us. While the goats are content to stay in their paddock, most of the time, we didn’t want to risk having them get out while we were away.
Rather than tethering them, or locking them up in their shed, we decided to take them out to the coast with us. The goats are growing fast, and I thought that we should secure them in the back of the ute. Becky wouldn’t hear of it! “They’ll be traumatized,” she informed me. So, the goats got to ride up front, mostly on Becky’s lap.
Out at the coast, Bonnie, the family’s fifteen year old Weimaraner came out to greet us.
Faithful Bonster, at the ready
None of us really knew how Bonnie would behave in the presence of the goats. At fifteen, Bonnie is VERY old. She has also suffered some recent health setbacks. With her hunting days long past, we assumed the old girl would check out the goats and quickly lose interest in them.
When we first took the goats out of the ute, we kept a close eye on Bonnie, thinking that maybe she would have a sniff at them and pretty much leave it at that. Indeed, that’s what happened. But, she seemed to want to keep sniffing at them…
I put Bonnie on a leash, just in case.
Bonnie greets Becky and the goatlings
As we all walked to a place where we could tether the goats, Bonnie was pulling hard at the leash, with her head low. This was starting to feel less and less like a friendly interest in the goats… Once Becky got the goats tethered near some tasty shrubs that needed pruning, I thought I’d give Bonster one more chance and let her get near the goats.
Bonnie looked around at us. She was quivering, and whimpering slightly.
She must have thought that these tasty, little goats were the best Christmas gifts that a faithful, old Weimaraner could ever get; rewards from the family for being such a splendid beast and accomplished hunter. She took one more sniff at Daphne, opened her jowels and aimed high for Daphne’s hind, right roast!
Luckily, I never fully relaxed the tension on the leash. Her bared fangs missed the young, succulent goat leg by about six inches.
“Well,” I chuckled, “I think we have our answer to that question.”
I’d had a couple of Black Labs when I was a kid, so I had a pretty good idea about hunting dog instincts. Even though Bonnie was very old, her breeding and instincts were intact. Becky’s dad, Bruce, led Bonster away.
We tied her up, well away from the goats. She was very disappointed. She had this look that seemed to be saying, “Why don’t I get to hunt down those goats? They would be very tasty! Let’s go find those goats. Hmm? Hmm? Come on. Let’s go find them!” Her tail/stump was flicking back and forth wildly.
Of course, none of us could be mad at Bonster for doing what hundreds of years of breeding had hard wired her to do. I knelt down near her and gave her copious pets and praise for being such a good dog.
Heh…it looks like Bonnie’s collar has trophies from previous goat encounters.
My goat experience ended after about two years as “Life on the Serenghetti Plain” when a couple of a neighbor’s dogs learned to climb out of their fenced yard, and into my fenced acreage. A very large percentage of livestock deaths are caused by domesticated dogs. I wish you the best of luck with yours.
George
P.S. I hope you can resist the urge to go out and get a job. I am afraid that it would just change everything. I keep trying to quit my job so that I can spend more than long weekends on my country property.