The Rogue Goat

The emotional challenge hanging over me at the moment, is the decision about behavioural euthanasia for the rogue goat living on my property.    I bought him a year and a half ago when he was 13wks old.  He escaped his pen and disappeared on the second day.   Despite exhaustive searches over a few weeks, he was nowhere to be found.   I came to the sad conclusion that he had most likely been taken by a coyote.    Three and a half months later he turned up in the back barn.  Where had he been all that time?   How had he survived?   I do not know.   He was in great shape.  But he'd grown up without human contact and was now feral.   No one could get near him.   I spent that winter restricting him to the barn and taking food and water to him daily.   Gradually he began to trust me enough to let me touch him.   Last summer he had freedom to roam the farm,  but I couldn't get him to move in with the other animals.   And we weren't able to neuter him because we couldn't catch him or confine him anywhere for recovery.   He's a little Houdini!   Over the course of the summer he became more and more independent and mischievious, and as he matured,  more and more territorial.  He goes into the hay barn and tears apart all the hay.  He breaks into the 'critter proof' food storage bin and steals the ducks food.   He rips open garbage, destroys fences, and last week he dragged a steel table saw workhorse out of the barn and into the field, where he spent the entire day dragging it around and beating the crap out of it.   Later that night when he was MIA,  I went over to check out the damage and found the table saw smashed into many pieces.   All of this stuff,  while annoying, would be tolerable if he also hadn't become aggressive.   On the one hand,  I don't know if he thinks he's playing and so treats me like another goat;  or if he's being aggressive towards me.  But either way, his behavior is not acceptable.   It's dangerous.   He comes after me,  chasing me and trying to ram me with his horns.  One day I was in the barn and I picked up an empty 15L water bottle to use as a shield,  and he leaned his head into it and pushed me all over the barn.   I was really scared.  Just last week he came after me and I picked up a plastic board to use as a shield, and he backed me all the way from the barn to the house where I tossed the shield towards him and ran for the door for safety.   He stood outside the door of the house hovering for quite awhile before going back to 'his' barn.    I can't feed the other animals until he goes off wandering because he won't let me near the barn.  I have to sneak out and hope he doesn't hear me.  Now I'm using the wheelbarrow as a shield to keep him away from me should he show up.   And yet sometimes he acts more curious and then I feel sorry for him because he's a lone goat.    I want to re-home him somewhere where he can be with    other goats but no one seems to want an intact male.   And he's not tame or friendly enough to catch and restrain to anaesthetize him for castration surgery.   Additionally,  my vet doesn't feel that neutering him will change his personality enough to make him a safe pet.  Her recommendation is humane euthanasia.   However,  catching him to get an IV line in would be both difficult and dangerous.   He'd freak out and fight and the fear/fight would make things inhumane for him.  That leaves us with one option.  We'd need someone with perfect aim to take him down with a single shot.  No struggle.  No fear.  No pain.

I'm feeling very weepy and struggling with this decision.   The reality is that he's a danger to me.  The combination of being semi-feral,  and intact,  and I'm certain the social isolation due to not being part of a herd, has culminated in his being independent, territorial, and aggressive.    I'm walking on eggshells on my own property, always looking to see if it's safe for me to go outside.   It's stressful to say the least.   I'm living in fear of this goat.   When he's not attacking me, he's really cute.  I feel like I've failed him even though I know I've done all I could to befriend him.   I think he's had a good life.  He's had freedom,  shelter of his own choosing, food and grazing, and kindness shown to him.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do.  I can't continue to live with him like this. 

On A Roll

In the midst of this business with the goat,  I've been trying to stay busy.  I've been on a roll of keeping up with daily chores and getting through them in a timely manner.  Today I even managed to take the first step towards developing online dog training programs.

I don't want to fall out of this momentum!

I've experienced these upward swings of momentum in the past but they haven't lasted.  Times when I've thought I have to get my life back on track,  I've taken the time to wear make up,  wear jewelry, pay attention to fashion  ….. you know …. look good/feel good.   And I've put energy into my dog training/teaching and my shows.   But it doesn't last.   I can't say for certain how long it lasts, or how it fizzles out …. just that it does.   And I'm not even sure that I've noticed the decline.

This past week I've been on an upward swing despite the weepy moments.  I don't want to lose this momentum.   I'm hoping that being more aware of it will help me keep it going.