Sometimes I think we should have a sign posted up at the front of our property. “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore …” except, no offense to Emma Lazarus, it would have to continue, “Give us your dogs that bark ceaselessly, your horses that bite, your donkeys that gnaw through wooden fence rails and destroy the azaleas, your chickens who toss all the pine bark mulch two feet from the planter box in pursuit of one June bug, your cats who throw up on the back doorstep … or better yet, wait there. Jim will be right over to get them.”
I don’t know how else to explain this horde that calls our home theirs. I am not an animal person and never have been. Not once did I beg for a pony. The one indoor dog I remember was a mutt named “Raffy” who passed gas regularly and ran away once, never to be seen again. My parents had cats, but everybody knows cats are smug elitists who only permit you to feed them before stalking out the door to smoke cigarettes and discuss Nietzsche in basement closets at the community college up the street.
But Jim’s memories are of Molly, the English Springer Spaniel who would chase him, barking, down the snowy Arkansas hills and then drag his sled back up to the top for him; of Heidi, the wiener dog, who wrestled ferociously with one of Larry’s (Jim’s dad) hands as he tickled her belly with the other; of Katie, another spaniel, who chewed rocks like bubble gum and dove into the pond to fetch more rocks, sometimes not surfacing until you were sure she must have drowned, but at last would emerge, triumphant, rock in mouth.
It’s highly likely the only reason Jim wanted land was so he could have animals. Before we even moved in, Jim picked up a couple of rabbits from the animal shelter. Within months these were followed by two miniature donkeys; a miniature horse who had previously been tethered to a six-foot chain in a garage; three miniature horses who were sold, ostensibly, because the owner had undergone a kidney transplant and could no longer have contact with animals, but we later discovered they were veritable escape artists; three goats; assorted ducks and chickens; stray dogs; our neighbor’s cat; mammoth-stock donkeys; more miniature donkeys; more rabbits; more ducks and chickens; and a few legitimate dogs (i.e. spayed or neutered, and current on their shots, but not in any way moral, church-going, or otherwise reputable).
My favorite animals, and by that I mean the animals I abhor the least, have been the goats. The original three came with the house, even though it wasn’t written into the contract. But we were gullible as well as ignorant as illustrated by Jack the first time we were walking out to the barn. He spied the one called Newt languishing in a dust wallow and froze. “Shhhh!” whispered the then 5-year-old Jack. “She’s on her nest!”
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Jack, Newt, and Amanda
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Newt, Weezie, and the other goat (whose name I can’t remember) were dwarf goats, or at least they were short compared to our later goats. They were not the charming little pygmie goats in all the hobby farm magazines, the ones that prance daintily through cat doors and frolic with neatly dressed children in a manicured back yard. Our goats were more of the street-gang stock, all bare-knuckled fighters bred to knock the stuffing out of trolls. They were hearty, as wide as they were long, and tall enough to take your knees out from under you when they barreled past in response to the dinner call. Tom, the former owner of the house, informed us that Weezie was the survivor of a Great Dane attack. The stray dog had torn out much of Weezie’s throat, but Tom, an ER doc, had patched him back up, almost as good as new. The other goat had a busted off horn and devil eyes that coldly judged and found you lacking. Newt was the one, Tom remarked casually, who hopped up and kicked the windshield out of his Suburban, and although he was gone at the time it occurred, he was also fairly sure it was Newt who kicked in the living room window (and, I expect, was perusing the silverware when Tom got home).
Sure enough, Newt was the brains of the outfit, the only one smart enough to scale their enclosure back by the barn, and roam on a daily basis. She would sneer at the other two as they watched forlornly her adventures in the unfenced wild. But she was also the butt of their pranks (pardon the pun); once Jim found her with her head stuck between the fence rails – an escape attempt gone bad -- bleating wretchedly as the other two goats gleefully took turns ramming her behind.
Newt was the one who came tripping gaily up to the house one day, right through the open back door and onto my new range top, which was laid out on the floor, ready to install. I suppose it was my enraged shriek that prompted Newt to drop a load of “raisinettes” (as Jim so diplomatically refers to them) onto the stovetop. And as my shrieking continued, coupled with my grab for the broom, she performed an impromptu tap-dance across the glass surface before continuing on into the hallway and out the front door. I’m not certain, but that incident may have discouraged her from kicking in any more windows. It’s most certainly why I close all the doors now.
Country living can be a shock to city-bred people. Our first Easter there, a stray German Shepherd paid a visit while we were out, and killed the three goats. They put up a good fight but were no match in the end. It was the same stray that had wandered onto our property the week before while we were out and attacked the miniature donkeys. The only evidence of the attack was one donkey’s scratched and bleeding flanks and some large paw prints in the mud. We assumed it was a coyote that had learned its lesson. But to be safe, the next time we were out, we shut the donkeys up inside the barn, never imagining that they, while defending themselves, had also inadvertently protected the goats.
When Jim called me back to the goats’ pen where the stray dog was still trapped, unable to climb back out, and clearly not right in the head, I did one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done: I couldn’t climb in since I was 7 months pregnant, but I reached through the fence and grabbed the dog to get the phone number off her tag. I don’t know what possessed me. At best, the goats and I simply abided each other. But they were our goats. We called the dog's owners who agreed to put the dog – their own family pet -- down. Once a dog kills like that, there isn’t much else you can do. We (and I’m not referring to the children) learned the hard way. Out here, small animals not housed with larger ones will be picked off. And even the friendliest family pets can regress into something frightening when ungoverned by human constraints.
Jim apparently felt the need to keep up the status quo, though, and before too much time passed, arrived home with three more goats that had been advertised as “meat” on Craigslist. The mama, the boys named her “Ruby,” was tied in the back of the truck while the two kids, “Max” and “Trot” clambered around in the cab. Trot came down with bloat, the accumulation of gas in the rumen, and died soon after, but the two remaining goats thrived, and fit in with the other rag-tag animals. Max and Ruby were wary of people (possibly expecting to be butchered at any moment) unless you came bearing scraps. Then they bleated and wailed, tried to haul themselves over the fence, and generally made out as if you were their long-lost best friend. When you dumped the pail, they dove in, but kept a distrustful eye on you the entire time.
Until the day, mid-winter-ish, that Woody came in and said, “I think there’s something wrong with Ruby. She hasn’t eaten in two days.” Jim went out to check on her, and sure enough, all four legs were sticking stiffly straight up and out the door of her Dogloo. She was pretty old when we got her (though it’s hard to tell with a goat), so we optimistically chalked her death up to old age. Jim, having already had to dig graves for the other goats, knew what he was supposed to do, but thought, “Uh-uh. Not again.” The ground was frozen, shovels were inadequate, the backhoe was out of commission. Later, he told me of his attempts to heave Ruby over the fence and into the tree line, including one experiment in centrifugal force: holding her legs and spinning around until gravity took over. Just for future reference, it only works depending on how low the fence is. I pictured Max watching the proceedings in horror, and the lesson all the animals took away: don’t die in the winter. Better yet, don’t die. Dignity that didn’t favor you in life will have nothing to do with you in death.
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Max
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Max lives with the donkeys now, sticking close to Bill, the mammoth-stock gelding. They pass their days keeping the grass in the back corral cropped short or dozing in the shade of the barn. Some days Max has bloat, some days he doesn’t. Since his diet doesn’t change much, I can’t say why. At dinner, when we throw out hay for the donkeys, Max hops up into the trough and clatters up and down its length, butting the donkeys out of the way and gobbling up as much hay as he can before one turns around and kicks him. Apparently, they are all comfortable with this routine.
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Max and friends
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Sometimes I do feel a twinge of remorse. As extensions of this family, our animals don’t have a chance at respectability. They can only gaze wistfully at the magnificent purebred draft horses that live the next property over. But Max is alive and kicking; that’s not bad for a goat destined to end up on someone’s plate. And there's something in knowing his breed will stand its ground. They may not win, will absolutely look worse for the encounter. But they'll give it their best. And that’s nothing to weeze at.
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