Sunday, July 11, 2010

A Pet Goat?

I don't get to do this often, but today I have a picture of a domesticated animal. A goat! And why did I choose a goat? Well, that's simply because I didn't see any other farm animals there. The goat was the only one around, and I happened to like the way it looked.

You may also notice that there is a car in the background. I don't exactly like showing any indications of nearby humans in my pictures, but I think since this animal is associated so closely with humans that having more evidence like this car is kind of appropriate. Don't you?

This is also my opportunity to tell you something a little strange about myself. While I lived in many types of places when I was a kid, including places in the country, I spent most of my years growing up in the city of Detroit, a pretty big city. And what is the strange part about that? Read on to find out.

While my family lived in the middle of this big city we still had farm animals at times. We once had a goat that we kept to keep other people out of our yard. Don't worry, we had plenty of room for him. Some people think a mean dog is good for keeping bad people away, but a mean billy goat is even better.

The reason we had these farm animals was because we had extra land around our house, and because my dad missed the farm he grew up on. We also had pigs and chickens too, along with a few other animals, but not all necessarily at the same time though. Even though we had a lot of room, we still lived in a city after all.

Some of you have dogs, some have cats, some have horses if you live away from the city. But have any of you had a pet goat in the middle of the city? You may think it's strange or even funny, and that's okay, but it was just the way I grew up. I have to say that I prefer dogs or cats now, but my dad is happy living back on a farm.

Oh, and Tigers. Since I'm from Detroit I like Tigers too, but only the kind that play baseball.

16 comments:

  1. A dog was the only animal we ever had when I was growing up. I imagine an angry goat would be quite good at keeping bad people away.

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  2. I wonder what the mail man thought about your goat! I guess that's one good way to keep from getting junk mail. The goat in this picture is really cute - I've never seen one colored like this.

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  3. It is weird to talk about a pet goat, but it seems to be real.

    If the list continues, people has pet snake, pet Iguana....

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  4. I wanna get a goat, but my partner won't let me. Something about how we paid all this money to landscape the back and we're not gonna have some goat that we have to milk eat all of the hostas.

    I never get to do anything fun. Pfft.

    Great blog, by the way. Keep up the good work.

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  5. Ratty- a lot of cities don't allow goats or other farm animals any more. Did you see the sad story at Some Assembly Required? http://john-sealander.blogspot.com/2010/07/day-205.html and a couple of earlier posts.

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  6. Goats can be mean. They will eat anything even chew on cars according to one source.
    That is wild that y'all had all those farm animals in Detroit! Last year a man in Atlanta went to court to keep his pet chickens. Never heard the outcome but hope he won his case. The news showed him crying over the prospect of having to give them up.

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  7. I have not thought of goat as pet at all, where I grew up, I thought people raise them to sell later for meat :( We had dogs and cat as pet when I was growing up, and I love playing with ducks and chicken too.

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  8. Critters in the yard, this one is a lawn mower.I always like them, but like Jean said they can be b-a-a-a-d.We had one at a camp I worked at and told people it was good luck to push on it's head.When they turned the goat knocked them down.They are good watch dogs.I would have a few of everything if i had the room.

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  9. That is one spiffy looking goat! My lack of knowledge about nature continues, as I thought all goats were brown...
    Thanks for the great commentary and especially the pictures!
    I love the squirrels.
    Jennie

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  10. I think lots of folks would have animals in the city if they could. These days so many people are removed from nature, animals that they don't even want to see them nearby. Then they have all the CCR's in new communities banning chickens and other small farm animals.

    I love having my chickens and horses. I'd love a goat but it's just not in the cards right now. :)

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  11. Oh wow! A guard goat! How cool is that! I think I am going to get one for my house :D

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  12. We live in the big city, but my human keeps wanting to get a goat. And a goose. But honestly, I don't think she's cut out to handle either one. She can barely deal with us cats.

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  13. My mom used to raise pig, goose, and chickens too. The goose acted like a guard dog, and protected us all too. We didn't have a goat though!

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  14. I'd love to have a pet goat, they are so docile and just plain cool to look at. He's a cutie

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  15. I grew up on a small farm so there were all kinds of animals around. Where we live now there are lots of farms so seeing a goat on someone's lawn is not really all that unusual. As for our lawn we have lots of nightly visitors like raccoons and possums. Sometimes deer come through and three weeks ago a cougar was spotted a few blocks from our house.

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  16. I love goats! I think that is so neat that you had one in the city. I'm surprised they allowed it. My grandfather had goats and my cousin had a couple of those small sized ones. They were so cute.

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