Goats will knock you down, eat your shoes right off your feet, walk all over you, and butt you when you try to get away. And poop.
“Learning experiences,” we say, when the children do something the pets don’t like. “The cat doesn’t LIKE James!” James wailed, after the cat made it clear, with claws, that she didn’t like him.
It is part of the growing experience. As a kid, I learned to read dogs pretty well, except one big German Shepherd named Sigfried who was my best friends dog.
I tuned into dogs, and I knew all the signs and could distinguish between bravado and Find a Tree and Climb it.
When a dog is unhappy, you can generally easily tell. My wife is fond of saying “People should have tails.”
I know exactly what she means.
Ditto on goats!
My goat hated men...any men.
One day the tax guy came out and asked if he could walk around the field to estimate our acreage.
“Go right ahead”, sez I, knowing that Babette was lurking behind the shed. He goes over the fence, my goat attacks (she was never de-horned) and catches him right where it counts! I never saw a guy jump a horse fence so fast to get back in the yard!
I watched, amused, from the kitchen window.
Too bad they didn’t have You-Tube in those days.