Goats, again.

We bought a new goat yesterday. He is a big boy. We won him at an auction in ML. After we finished bidding, we headed out to borrow a horse trailer so we could transport him. We weren't sure where to keep him because we didn't have time to drive him all the way to Basin City that night (okay, it's only 45 minutes from ML, still, we didn't have time) . We decided to at least take him to our house and then we would be part of the way to Basin City and could finish the trip Monday morning. We were just going to keep him in the trailer in the driveway. We bought some hay (almost embarassing) and some goat feed. We gave him a bucket of water when we got home and tucked him in for the night. By morning, he still looked like he wanted out of the trailer. I guess we were hoping he'd just decide to chill while he waited to go home. He was nervous and anxious every time we checked on him. So, when we got home, we let him out into the back yard. The backyard has a wood fence perimeter so we were confident that he couldn't get out and besides, we were just going to leave him there for the afternoon while we could watch him. As soon as Justin opened the trailer door, he pushed past and headed out. Justin managed to grab the chain collar around his neck and steered him into the backyard. The goat (we are guessing he weighs about 400 lbs) paced the yard and checked out the perimeter. He first checked out the 4' chainlink fence that seperates our backyard in half. He tried knocking that down. He rammed it and then tried again with his front hooves. That didn't work so he headed to the other end of the yard where we have a small basketball cement pad. He stood up on his hind legs and rested his front hooves near the top of the fence . He definitely could see out. That's where he wanted to be, out. He trotted around some more and then ran toward the fence and punched it with his front hooves. That's all it took and the fence didn't survive. He wiped out about 7 fence slats. He turned away as they fell off and he circled around Justin who was heading for him and ran to the adjacent side of the fence. Again, he punched at the fence with his front hooves. This time he took out 3 or 4 slats. He turned again to face Justin and let Justin grab his collar again. Justin pushed him up against the fence to sort of tell him who was boss. Then he and Brandon and our friend Keith were able to get him back into the trailer. The kids were totally freaked out and I was not happy that I was still in my dress. I didn't want to be running after an escapee goat all over town in my dress. We were all relieved to have him back in the trailer. We laughed pretty hard over the whole escapade and then decided Sabbath or not, we've got to get him to Basin City and out of this trailer, off of our property, and out of this town before we get a fine for keeping farm animals in our backyard! I did happen to have the camera out. I wish that I'd have had it set on video, but instead I only got a couple of pictures after all the damage had been done. If you double click the picture, I think it will enlarge.