Adventures in horsekeeping: Near-goat experiences

A horse and two goats warming in the sun. VTD/Josh Larkin

Editor’s note: A former reporter and columnist for The Washington Post, Barbara Ann Curcio is now a columnist for VTDigger.org.

That horses are prey animals is simply the nature of the beast. For them, life comes down to two compelling questions: “Can I eat it?” (as in grass, feed or treats) or “Can it eat me?” (as in a predator).

In short, a happy horse is one that is ordering from, not ON, the dinner menu.

Hold the Hors(e) d’oeuvres.

As prey, horses are keenly aware of their environments and the least little change in them. Autumn leaves suddenly down in the woods? Scary! House guests at the neighbors, not horsey pre-approved?

Really scary! Tractor parked in the field where there wasn’t one yesterday? Flee! Run away! NOW!!!!!! A sod delivery next door, followed by the laying thereof by mysterious strangers? Why, Birnam Wood has surely come to Dunsinane!

They never forget a scary place–once a spook spot, always a spook spot. Horses also have hyperactive imaginations, and, truth be told, sometimes just enjoy a good scare (tunes up the prey instincts).

The two scenarios–eat or be eaten–thus dominate all their waking hours.

While some horses are bigger fraidy-cats than others, most have at least one bogeyman that scares them above all else. For two of our three horses, that would be goats. (For the third, it was monster round bales that inexplicably appeared in our neighbor’s pasture at dusk one night–apparently not indigenous to Bailey’s native Denmark.)

Now, if you prefer a nice predictable, orderly life, forget happy horsekeeping. Every day brings some new horse-sterics. My husband’s motto when it comes to our three horsey children is, “If it can happen, it will.” Or as Mr. Ed so aptly demonstrated, “A horse is a horse, of course, of course.”

One recent morning, for instance, two of our three steeds were grazing peacefully one minute, and running for their lives the next. The cause of the panic? Let’s call it a near-goat experience. And the kids were most definitely NOT alright.

For most of the winter, our neighbors have had one forlorn little baby goat, whose plaintive cries (hungry? lonely? got milk?) attracted no notice from the horses.

Until, that is, the sudden addition of three new kids in town, seemingly in the dead of night. In the light of day, it quickly became apparent that there is something about the outside of a goat that is very bad indeed for the inside of a horse.

Instead of calmly waiting to return to the barn after the morning stallkeeping, Scout and Silver were alternately galloping, attacking-then-retreating and snorting loudly in full fight AND flight modes simultaneously. You’d think Godzilla, King Kong and Son of Kong had moved in overnight. But the absurdity of the situation—the smallness and helplessness of the new neighbors–was lost on them. With the interlopers’ compound secreted behind a tall fence, the fear lay in the hearing and the smelling of goat, and the NOT SEEING. After all, could a 10-pound baby goat really terrorize a 1,000-plus-pound horse?

You betcha.

You’d think they’d be accustomed to goats, at least in the astrological sense, since my husband and I are both Capricorns. In any case, here they were behaving exactly as they would in the wild, as described by Desmond Morris in “Horsewatching.” Horses facing a potential predator will snort a warning that can be heard just 50 yards away only by other herd members, thereby disarming a distant predator’s GPS. Ordering in a nice tasty horseburger is, thus, out. (Who says horses are stupid!)

For safety’s sake — theirs and ours — we halted the stampede by closing off the near-goat paddock; but when bedlam continued in the safety of their stalls, we knew we had us a bona-fide horsey situation.

Call it “Men Who Stare At Horses Who Stare At Goats.”

So what to do? Having dabbled in a number of riding disciplines over the years, we considered the options. Dressage trainers, for example, would say that obedience is paramount. “Put the horse ‘on the aids’” (all the while the horse is thinking “Aids-schmaids, I’m dyin’ heah!!!!!!!!”); “put your leg on” (easy for you to say, you’re not a 100-pound weakling); “take a firm contact” (earth to horse, do you read me?); and distract them with shoulder-in, etc., until the fancy footwork overwhelms their survival instincts (not gonna happen, trust me!).

Then there are the “three-day eventers.” In a sport where the ethic is decidedly macho and out-of-control the norm, eventers would simply turn the goats into a live cross-country jump.

On the other hoof, “Western Pleasure” trainers would tie the horses up next to the goat pen fully saddled and leave them standing there for hours on end, in case the horseless ghost of John Wayne should mosey up with a stepladder. (This supposedly teaches submission but in fact only confirms the horse’s suspicions that man is indeed cruel and capricious–in short, just another predator.)

Goats might even be obstacles in a Western “trail” class, reports my friend Jane, who once had to navigate around three billy goats (no wonder they’re “gruff”) tethered in the middle of the course. Seems cruel to me, but then, trust me, atrocities have been committed in the name of winning a pair of free Wranglers at a Western Pleasure event.

No, the best solution to any horsey conundrum, we have found, is what we like to call the “cowboy” way, or natural horsemanship.

This consists of getting–and keeping–the horse’s attention on the handler and not the distraction, working through the problem first on the ground, where it’s safer. The idea is to lead the steed toward the object of terror — together in the case of Silver and Scout so there is safety in numbers–exercising an approach-and-retreat strategy like the one described by Desmond Morris.

Navigating the horses toward the offending creatures in small increments, we allowed them to pause and regard the goats from a safe distance. All the while we stroked, reassured and lauded them for epic courage in the face of relentless kidding. Next, we circled them away as a reward, and approached the potential predators again, this time a little closer.

Over a two-day period using this strategy, we were able to lead the horses all the way up to the end of our property directly across from the kids.

Problem solved for the moment. But horses being fundamentally mercurial creatures, you never know how long this “when life gives you goats, make goat cheese” epiphany might last. It’s not a question of if, but rather when, a relapse will occur and they will revert to instinct: “When life gives you goats, panic first, ask questions later.”

These two opposing philosophies neatly reflect the duality of horses — both the impulsive, flighty side and their noble, magical quality. One is represented by the mythological Pegasus—the ultimate flight animal — the other by Percy, Goofy’s mount in the 1950 Disney cartoon “How to Ride A Horse.”

Horses in silhouette, photo from Stockxchng

In theory, at least, goats and horses do get along, and goats can be a calming influence. You’d certainly think this would be the case, since both goats and horses are extremely curious, inquisitive and intelligent, and most importantly for their keepers, Will Test Fences. Both are prey animals, and skittish for good reason: They eat horses, don’t they?…. And the next night they might eat goat.

A vet friend, Lorie, tells me they are often used as companions at the race track. Probably apocryphal, the expression “getting his goat” likely originated at the track when a rival horse owner committed emotional sabotage by stealing the favorite’s goat the night before a race.

Another friend, Rene, once had two goats, Thelma and Louise, to keep company with her lone horse, Trigger. They got along fine, but one of them ate the Palomino’s tail. (Fortunately, she stopped the goat in mid-meal.) Clearly Silver and Scout did not get the “they eat only tails and leave the rest” memo.

Even B.G. (before goats), our horses have been occasionally vexing. Silver, for one, has abandonment issues whenever the other two go on trail rides without him. He does not “do” trail well, getting his exercise instead by screaming for his buddies and trotting tight circles in his stall. Our equine dentist, not knowing about our near-goats, recently suggested we get him a goat for company.

Or perhaps a miniature horse instead? Scout dreads minis almost as much as goats ever since he first encountered one on a trail ride and was utterly stupefied. (If he could, Scout would round them all up in a mini-van and deport them.)

A week after we pronounced our goat problem fixed, one of our other neighbor’s kids, the human kind, had a temper tantrum, followed by an outdoor Time Out.

Her pitiful crying sounded just like–you guessed it–the real kids. The moment passed without incident.

Two weeks later, while we were riding, the human kids and kid-kids went off simultaneously like dueling alarm clocks. Still no horsey reaction. Perhaps by this time they were no longer expecting to see entire horse carcasses hurled willy-nilly over the goat pen. Or maybe, they decided that the kids WERE all right.

After all, what that original lonesome kid really wanted, it turned out, was companionship. The real irony: multiple goats = an easy peace.

But should there be a relapse, we are confident in our approach. After all, didn’t we have the good sense not to immediately ride our goat-fearing horses right up to the monsters when they first appeared? We are not so deluded as to think that in the man/horse relationship calm can’t turn to chaos in an instant.

Witness our fellow equestrians and more tales of petrified ponies unearthed on the Internet. One such horse was afraid of “Poles, jump standards and cavaletti.” His job description? “Hunter-jumper.”

Another rider described the terror unleashed by an avian spectacle she dubs the “Mohawk Duck of Death” (any relation to just the plain old “Duck of Death,” so named by Gene Hackman in “Unforgiven”?).

Yet another mount with a terror of dump trucks was parked in a paddock day and night with his nemesis. It became his feed bucket, hay rack, grooming station and constant companion. (They likely eloped to somewhere in a nice condo in Del Boca Vista and are living happily ever after.)

But a certain “Toby” is definitely the Sultan of Spooks. Writes his unfortunate owner: “Toby is afraid of grass, street signs, loose horses, waving arms, chaff bags, wheelie carts, my riding instructor, my baby cousin, mounting, trains, horse-drawn vehicles, cats, dogs, cement gates, bunting, flags, grandstands, crowds, clapping, my friend’s horse …. semi-trailers and car horns. But he’s not spooky at all when he’s with his best friend, Ollie, who is equally spooky.”

By comparison, what are a few near-goat experiences among friends?