We had one named Jezebel who was raised with and largely by dogs (her mother rejected her and had to be forced to nurse her) and so help me she thought she was a dog. She even barked- her bleating sounded like a goat imitating a dog. She would hang out with the other dogs, they never bothered her, did not like the other goats, and when she had her first litter of kids- I don’t know if it was the same reason her mother rejected her or because they were goats and not puppies- she rejected them.
One of the things I feel guiltiest about to this day was that one of her kids went missing when it was a few days old and already doing very poorly. They weren’t responding to the bottle feeding and Bell wouldn’t nurse unless you made her and even then she didn’t seem to produce enough milk. I went looking for the kid, knowing that one of the dogs had to have gotten it, and when I found it our Siberian Huskie had it. It was dead and I assumed she’d "kid"napped it to eat it and I yelled at her, slapped her, and was just determined to put the fear of God and or Michael Landon into her for killing the poor little thing. She was a sweet and gentle dog but also a great hunter- always tracking rabbits and small game- and I wanted to let her know “THESE AREN’T FOR YOU!”
Later I went into the shed where the other baby goat was to give it a feeding. There was Ashley (the Huskie) lying on her side trying to nudge the baby goat to her nipple. That’s when I realized she hadn’t intentionally killed the other baby goat if she’d killed it at all- she had stolen it in an attempt to feed it. (Ashley had pups that had just been weaned so she still had milk.) Ah… never felt so bad for yelling at an animal. (Animals will kidnap and nurse other animal’s babies- I’ve seen dogs let kittens suckle, and my aunts had a senile old cat who was notorious for stealing kittens from much younger mothers and trying to nurse them even though she hadn’t had a litter or produced milk in years.)
The other baby goat died as well. Later Bel had a litter of four kids (as rare as twins for a human) and was the perfect mother and they all grew up sound and healthy and played with the dogs who never messed with them like they did other livestock. The dogs hated Bel’s “husband”, Brigham, and her sister-wife Cuckoo, both of whom would butt hell out of them [Brig had horns, Cuckoo just had nubs but was the worse butt-er] if they came anywhere near him, but then Bel hated Brigham and Cuckoo too, though she would go get her freak on with him voluntarily when she was in season and in the mood.
I named the billy Brigham not because of his wives but because of his beard and because of one of my favorite stories about Brigham Young: once a two-faced Federal official wrote a letter praising Young’s efforts in Utah to Young but wrote another referring to Young as a “greedy and priapistic old billy goat” to his superiors in D.C… Unfortunately he put them in the wrong envelopes so that Young got the latter letter- he forwarded it back to the official with a handwritten note “Dear Sir, I fear this was intended for your superiors. I thank you for the kind words you undoubtedly sent them about me. Sincerely yours, the old billy goat.”
Sorry, that was a seriously long hijack, but the point is don’t name a goat Brigham if you expect domestic harmony and no trouble with the authorities.
Thanks!
Thank you. In all my years on the Dope, you’re the first person to ever quote me in a sig!
I want a goat!
It took me a week to realize this- you’re getting a physical exam, the Doc is checking your colon while jabbering on about God’s plan in the Jewish rejection of Christ…
you, my friend, are living in a Walker Percy novel!
No, it’s more like acupuncture, but they use lasers. It’s not like they slice open your skull a la Sylar and laser out the part in your brain that craves nicotine.
Sampiro When in the hell are you going to submit your work for publishing?
Brilliant!
My mom did, it was the only thing that worked after she tried all the other ways to do it.
It didn’t work for my dad, though, he quit a few months after my mom did (and after he went to the hypnotist with her) because he promised her that if she did, he would too.
My father stopped smoking when he had his first heart attack in 1976.
Then he switched to chewing tobacco. :eek:
I laughed very hard at this the first time around, but it’s time to let go of our ankles and BRAAAAINS. Locked.