Huge Sigh of Relief

Carmel, the goat, is okay.

Why, you might ask, is this important?

Because we had a very scary early evening yesterday.

We have yet to build a bigger fenced in area for the goats to eat more browse, so have been tying them out on dog tie outs in a different part of the overgrown yard for the past week or so and putting them in their pen at night.

Last night, I was just getting ready to go milk her, when the kids accidentally let our dog, Marley, out.  Now, Marley is pretty much a moron, a sweetheart, but a moron, as in her brain stops working as soon as she's off the leash.  Last night was one of these nights.  She realized she was loose and made a break for it.

The neighbor's dog, Mason - a BIG BLACK Lab, saw her running and dashed across our yard.  He is usually very good and stays in their yard.  However, the opportunity to chase Marley was more than he could handle.  (It's worked to my advantage before, because he has caught Marley and kept her in one spot until I could get the leash back on her.)

Last night, this was not a simple game of chase and hold.  Last night, it turned scary.

Carmel, our little doeling, is an escape artist.  She gets out of the pen and she can get her self unhooked from the tie out.  Has never been an issue, because she hangs out around mom and comes right to us.

Well, last night, with Mason (95lbs+) chasing Marley, Carmel freaked and ran.  She was off her tie out, so she headed for the hills, or in this case, the back wall of their fenced-in pen.  Mason couldn't resist this tempting little morsel dashing away from him and screaming.

It only was a minute tops for us, but I'm sure Carmel thought it was a lifetime.  The kids were screaming and crying that Mason was killing Carmel.  I RAN (even with a sprained ankle) to get the poor baby away from Mason.  I was screaming at the BLEEP dog, yelling at the kids to get Marley on the BLEEP leash, and trying to carry Carmel away from it all to check her out.

I was crying. The kids were crying.  I thought Carmel was a goner.  When I had picked her up, she gave the mose piteous bleat ever and I thought for sure I was carrying a dead goat.  The dog had only broken the skin in one spot, and I think it was just a tooth.  Her neck was worked over and so was her belly.  When I was feeling her neck, I just about screamed when I felt something hanging out of her neck. I forced myself to look and thank God it was just one of her wattles.  God, that was scary.

I was really worried about her, because my poor baby had no spunk and was just shaking like crazy.  I spent over an hour outside with her and she just wanted to snuggle with me. 

I was SOOOO worried that I was going to go outside this morning to a dead goat.  Luckily, that didn't happen.

She still doesn't have her normal nutsiness and spunk, but she actually jumped into the window sill in their pen this morning and was trying to steal Mom's grain, so I think she will be just fine.

Mason was lucky that I had to carry Carmel, otherwise I would have beaten that dog.

The neighbors felt horrible and the dog is grounded. 

So, the darn goat has worked it's way into our hearts and we'd be really sad if she wasn't okay.  Extra treats for the next couple of days and extra snuggles for the poor goat.