The Animal Rights Activist Who Got it Wrong

Livestock Guardian Dog & Granny help new mama
clean off baby Sofie. Is this abusive, too?

OK, so that’s kind of a strong statement to lead off with. But, dammit, reactive “animal rights” activists make me so mad I could spit. Spit, dammit. And my day started off so well, too.

I was drinking my coffee on this fine Labor Day when Katherine told me about a Facebook tirade on our friend’s page. The friend had posted a memory of her all-time favorite goat. In this happy memory, the goat and girl were smiling for the camera with ribbons galore. To protect the innocent, I will not share the exact picture but here’s something similar to give you the idea. 

Katherine and Pupa

The sad part of the post is that the goat died in kidding later that year, much to the dismay of the young breeder. Hence the commemorative 1-year memory.

We’ve all been there. I’ve written about the intense emotions of raising goats. Long days and nights waiting for a goat to go into labor, watching for subtle signs, rushing home from school, burning rubber out of the driveway at 2:00am to help someone else’s goat in labor. Hours in the barn/garage waiting for a goat to give birth. The unimaginable stress of a complicated birth: pullers, lube, various repositioning techniques, crying goats, crying people. Tears of unadulterated frustration, tears of abject grief.

And that’s not even when you have to make the hard call to put a goat down. In that scenario multiply all of the above by 10.

If I can do it So Can You

So, back to our friend’s post. There she is smiling with her now-deceased favorite goat. The post was meant to pay homage to her goat, to her relationship with her pet, and to her love for this animal. Back in early 2018 when she put her goat down, she posted photos of her “tribute wall” to her goat: a wall full of ribbons, plaques and photos attesting to the wonderful partnership of the goat and its handler. Awww, big smiles. That’s why we are “in goats.”

The memory included a collage of photos about her goat. Again, to protect her identity and privacy, I won’t use her photos. But I will include a similar montage of our own goat. (We adored this goat and the myriad of life experiences we had with her. She lived 11 or 12 wonderful years and taught us so much.)

Pupa

At first, the responses to our friend were all normal – like, like, like, “that was last year!,” love, tears, etc. But then… there was this left-field response:

I scratched my head in baffled confusion.

Slaughter? Um, what slaughter? The goat was euthanized after a bad kidding. Her owner was right there with her the entire time – scratching her shoulder and holding her hoof. Slaughter? What the hell? And … Jesus…? What does he have to do with this? Protein? It’s as if we were transported to parallel universe where you say one thing and the “universal translator” comes up with something totally different.

Universal Translator at Work

Our friend responds: “She wasn’t slaughtered? She was a beloved pet.” (Duh).

The Activist responds:

Um, right-o. Our buddy can account for each and every one of her goats. Not just their whereabouts, either. In fact, I will bet you $10 right here and now that she could recite--off the top of her head--the registered show name, barn name and three degrees of pedigree for each and every one of her goats… AS WELL AS their favorite treats and individual idiosyncrasies. I know Katherine can. I just asked her.

And we aren’t talking about one or two goats here; these girls have 50-100 goats at any given time.

Where is this verbal abuse about “animal abuser,” “Jesus” and “protein” coming from? I’m disappointed to say that, after stalking my friend’s page, this is not the first false accusation of goat abuse she has received.

[Sidenote: CHECK YOUR FACEBOOK PRIVACY SETTINGS! The activist in our story is not a “friend.”She must’ve stumbled across my buddy. I’ll get to that. First things first,check your settings!!]

My buddy is a better person than I, ‘cuz I woulda blasted The Activist. Like a true Christian, my friend let it go.

What really frosts me is that The Activist jumped on this post making some blatantly wrong assumptions. She viewed the post through her “save-the-animals-from-the-evil-humans” filter. And then she reacted. Without thinking. (As my dear ex-husband used to say, “There’s a difference between being open minded and having a hole in your head.)

The Activist obviously didn’t read any further on my friend’s page or she would’ve seen a slew of loving posts about baby goats, about piling goats into the cab of her truck when the trailer got a flat tire, about preferring goats to people, etc. etc. Totally normal stuff in the Pygmy Goat World.

So, how did The Activist even find my buddy? All I can figure is that The Activist was trolling around Facebook doing some random search or another--maybe “goat”? But wait. I just did that search and got this:

Certainly nothing about slaughtering goats. Or maybe those search results are based on my preferences? On a complicated algorithm I’m certain. Facebook seems to think I like cute videos of animals (which I do).

So, what does Facebook think The Activist likes to see? Yikes. If you include “slaughter” in your search you do come across some gruesome images and videos. But, not about Pygmy Goats. And not about my friend.

I know my friend has an active and successful breeding and sales program, and I suspect she sources a lot of sales off of Facebook (since Katherine does, too). But, again, if you search “goat sales” you get lots of cute baby goat photos.

I have yet to unravel this mystery. Perhaps The Activist and her buds are targeting my friend?  God knows why, though. (Oooo, there it is … I invoked religion…! Per The Activist’s accusation.)

I remember a story in the newspaper a while back about an Animal Rights group (that shall remain nameless lest I use my voice as free advertising). In the middle of the night they raided a goat farm based on some misguided notion that the goats were being mistreated.

They found a baby goat with a runny nose and some lice and gallantly "rescued" it from the evil farmer. OK, I admit I am skeptical based on my own experience with goats. Runny noses and lice are not uncommon; they are yucky and sub-optimal, but not earth shattering. In fact, I bet I could find some goats that fit that description in my field right now. Hell, I could probably find CHILDREN with runny noses and lice, too. But I digress…

Back to our story. Our Heroic Activist steals the baby goat, ripping it away from its mother. And what do you think happened? The baby goat got SICKER… because it wasn’t eating…because it didn’t know how to nurse off of a bottle…because it had a mama. (I refer you to my post about bottle feeding baby goats. It’s not as easy as you – or The Activist—might think).

Fortunately, The Activist took the kid to a vet who dosed it up with some antibiotics and convinced it to eat from a bottle. The baby survived and was re-homed with some seemingly-sensible people who now love the little animal.

But, the story easily could’ve had a different, tragic ending because of the rash act of The Activist.

Time for a breather. I need to get my blood pressure back down. 

Here’s a cute baby goat video of the antics of our goat “Sofie” and her farmyard friends. 

The Antics of Sofie

Yes, of course, there are some bad farmers out there. And, yes, some animals are raised in deplorable conditions (people, too, for that matter).

As a society we must be careful not to view everything exclusively through our personal biases. Just because there are some bad people, doesn’t mean all people are bad.

 

The Law of the Hammer and the Nail

And for God’s sake, we need to educate ourselves before we react.

Yup

Baby Goat Takes on Dog - RAWR!

A Goat Named Henry

As a child, I divided my time between my parents, one of whom lived in a mid-sized city on the East Coast and the other who lived in a small rural town also on the East Coast.  I was an only child and got shuttled around between my parents and grandparents for most of my childhood.  My life wasn’t exactly privileged in comparison with all the other little girls in my crowd, but compared to the rest of the world it was pretty good.  I had dogs, cats, a guinea pig, fish.  Ordinary pets.  There was, however, one glimmer of my goat herding future in the form of a goat named Henry. 

When I was six I went to the County Fair with my mom and her then-boyfriend.  My mom had grown up as one of ten kids on a farm and had put herself through college and grad school AND law school.  She was quite the academic overachiever, but remained a “country girl” at heart.  There we were at the Fair, in the petting zoo to be specific (she was probably more excited about it than I was). 

Petting Zoo

In hindsight, I realize that The Boyfriend must have been relatively new at the time and was probably still trying to impress her.  Ah, dating.  So when Mom said how cute the baby goat was, he snuck off and bought it.

I have since been to many petting zoos and cannot for the life of me imagine why someone would sell one of their petting animals, especially one as cute as a baby goat; that’s their bread-and-butter for Pete’s sake. The Boyfriend must have paid through the nose for that kid.

Anyway, Mom was thrilled and let me name the goat.  I chose “Henry” after my favorite 2^nd cousin.  Fortunately for family politics, my cousin was flattered and we still laugh about the naming to this day.  Henry (the goat) came home to live with us.  And by “with us” I mean INSIDE the house.  We lived in a small house in a small town with a small yard.  I was six so it didn’t occur to me to ask why the goat did not live outside…. six year-olds just roll with it.  Maybe adults should learn to do the same.

1972 VW Bug

So Henry lived with us like a dog.  He rode in the backseat of Mom’s 1972 Volkswagen Beetle (“Hey lady, is that a goat in your car?”).  He trotted around the house with his little cloven hooves – clickety clack.  He came when he was called - maah.  Henry eventually learned to climb the stairs and could jump over any obstacle meant to deter him (gates, tables, dressers—you get the idea).  Unfortunately for my mother, housetraining was not in the cards.  But, as I said, I was six and I just rolled with it.

When we got Henry he was probably about 8 weeks old and the size of a small dog.  I have since learned that he was a breed of dairy goat called a Toggenburg.  According to Wikipedia, they are “good as pets,” although I don’t think Wiki meant house pets per se.  Another web site (www.hobbyfarms.com) describes “Toggs” as standing 34-38” tall and weighing 150 to 200 pounds.  They are “marvelous dairy goats” – by which they probably mean OUTSIDE.  Lets think about that for a moment: a single mother with a young child living in a small (rental) house with a 150-pound goat. 

One day I came home from school and Henry was gone.  He had moved to a farm “to live with other goats.”  I was six…I just rolled with it of course.  But I never forgot Henry.

Thirty-three years later I was going through a divorce from my husband of 18 years and I was bumbling through a first date with Bubba.  We had known each other casually for some time, but on this date I learned a whole lot more about him – notably that he was a goat farmer.  I was hooked.  It must be a genetic weakness that I inherited from my mother: all a man needed to do to pick me up at that fragile point in my life was say “goat.”

Not my Henry, but, look! someone else on Pinterest has a Henry, too!