This is an odd story. At first, I thought it might be an April fools joke, but it’s from yesterday. But after reading the story, I’m actually a bit conflicted about it and so as usual when I find myself in such a state, I turn to you fine folks to help me think it through.
The gist of the story is that the family signed the daughter up to raise a goat for 3 months knowing it would be given up and slaughtered at the end, but the girl fell in love with the goat and didn’t want to give it up. The mom then took the goat (after the fair refused her offer to reimburse all expenses), and then the cops were called. Search warrants were issued and then the goat was found and then it was slaughtered.
I believe the girl was not properly prepared to raise a goat for slaughter. I would have let her keep the goat if she reimbursed the fair for expenses. If the fair cannot take the time to qualify participants, they should assume the risk of this happening from time to time. The police should have not acted without a court order if I am reading this right.
Sounds like a breech of contract issue.
The confusing part is - who actually had ownership of the goat? The article says that “Long purchased the goat for her daughter”. But there must have been contract language in the sales document that allowed the county to sell it at auction. Which they did.
The article does not delve into what the sales contract says. In the end, the law will treat the goat as property. The question is, did the Long family have free and clear ownership of the property, or were they just caring for the property of the county on a temporary basis until it was resold? Who paid for care and maintenance of the property, and was this spelled out in the contract?
Finally, are the police in this area typically brought in to resolve contract disputes by unilaterally seizing disputed property? Is this a normal thing they do there? If not, why did they do it in this case? Who told them to interfere in a contract dispute?
I just cannot imagine the lack of empathy in the fair organizers. Are we talking about a million dollar goat or something? I just cannot imagine causing that kind of intentional harm to a child. Wow.
I can’t speak for this fair, but in my experience, these sort of things (children raising animals for slaughter) are designed to remove the natural empathy and kindness that children have. This particular child was not respecting their authority.
The mom was perfectly willing to recompense the buyer (a Republican state senator, who offered to spare the goat) and the Fair for any expenses, but they had to teach a nine year old a lesson. The article says the girl lost three grandparents in the last year, so I’d say there’s even more mitigation.
It looks like a 4H thing where the entire intent is to raise an animal for slaughter. It’s the mom who’s the villain and the fuck up here and unless they’re a family of vegetarians, an entitled hypocrite too. It’s probably not the best use of police resources but you can’t just take things that don’t belong to you just because your kid has a sad.
If I was the person in charge though, I’d just give them the fucking goat and not let them participate again which they certainly wouldn’t want to do.
Wait, hypocrite? What? Unless you’re a vegetarian, you must be willing to slaughter and eat any animal, regardless of any other emotional bond you might have with it? Am I a hypocrite being willing to eat a hamburger, but not my dog?
Fwiw, i foster animals, and part of the deal is that i promise to return the animal when the shelter asks for it back. I dunno what happens legally if a foster family falls in love with the cat and won’t return it. I mean, often, the animal is available for adoption, so if you want to keep it you can just pay the adoption fee, but the last cat we fostered belonged to an old woman who was sick, and the shelter sought a foster home to care for it until the owner could take it back. Really, it would be morally wrong of me to try to keep the cat once they asked for it back. And we did have one cat that my daughter thought was abused by its owner, and was reluctant to return. (The kittens were available to adopt, but not the mom.) Fortunately, we decided it was just a semi-feral cat, and not an abused cat, and ultimately my daughter was okay when i returned it.
So i kinda see the other side.
But “we want to slaughter this animal you fell in love with, and no, we won’t let you buy it, for any price” seems cruel. Unlike pet cats, goat meat is fungible and there ought to be a price at which they can sell the thing.
This can’t be the first time this situation has come up in an institution as large as 4-H. You would think there would be protocols in place that didn’t involve bringing in the police or traumatizing a child.
ETA - Damn it! I was planning on having barria for lunch.
Fosterers for Cats and Dogs often don’t return pets . You can do it the right way and foster fail and adopt the kitten/puppy or you can just kind of ghost the fostering organization. The groups I fostered with said this happens surprisingly often.
We foster failed and ended up with a wonderful cat. But we did everything correctly.
I lean towards hajario’s opinion on this that the Mom is in the wrong. Especially as she waited until after the goat was auctioned off and another big hit is they apparently weren’t even keeping the goat at home. WTF?
Just tell the child “You did a great job raising the kid and it is going to a nice farm upstate” or something.
As the Mom started a social media campaign to save the goat, maybe the 4-H people over-reacted a little in response. But again, the Mom was being very entitled.
Regardless of whose fault it is for not anticipating the outcome of this, it is pretty much the height of cruelty to take the pet that this 9 year old girl has “…walked and fed…bonding with the brown and white floppy-eared animal named Cedar,” without even attempting some kind of accommodation, and especially resorting to calling in the sheriff’s department. I’ve lived and worked on farms where everybody knew that cows, chickens, sheep, hogs, and other livestock were being raised for slaughter, but even then it was understood that certain favored animals were pets that would be spared.
This just seems like someone decided to prove a point by taking an action that would traumatize a young girl who had been (however unadvisedly) allowed to bond with the animal, and goats in particular can be as personable and affectionate as dogs and cats.
“Entitled” would be demanding that she just be allowed to keep the goat gratis. The article indicates that she offered to reimburse all expenses and purchase the goat.
The Mom waited until the goat was already auctioned off. Her timing was absolute shit. I imagine things would have turned out differently if she handled anything on her side better. Instead she just took the goat home that she didn’t own.
