No pictures, since I’m preoccupied with a sick Petunia this morning, but the beauty of a laptop is that I can sit with Petunia by the fire and still type on my computer.

Pac-Man has been entertaining us non-stop this morning with his antics, which we can see through the back door window. I’m not sure he ever had high things to play on before he came here because he didn’t seem to know what to do with the stump and the spool. Well yesterday he apparently discovered what they are for (and a very clumsy display he made!), and this morning he woke us up bright and early like a kid on Christmas so he could play with his new toy. He’s been out there for an hour fighting with himself on top of the spool. His hair is all stood up on end, his tail is wagging viciously, and he’s bouncing and posturing and head-butting invisible enemies. Sometimes he even gets pushed off! He is exactly like a kid with a toy sword, fighting invisible foes, getting stabbed, then jumping up to fight some more. Phil and I can’t stop laughing as he spins, rushes, butts, flies off the spool sideways and leaps back up, hackles raised, to twirl and pounce and fight again.

I forget how big my little girls are because to me they’re still my babies, and some of it, of course, is camera angle, but still… Nubbin as no longer a little nubbin, and while still the cutest and fluffiest of my goats, she’s lost most of her baby look by now and is fast turning into a beautiful young doe. Her feet are also turning out much nicer than I originally feared. She was pretty pigeon-toed for a long time and she’ll always have a funny little waddle, but she seems to be getting better with age, and conformationally, she seems to be an improvement over her mother.

I told ya Petunia is a monster! Look, she’s even giving goat-back rides to horses now!

Pac-Man passed his preliminary health check on Monday (vet says he looks healthy, has no worms), but until we hear the results of his CAE test, he’s got to be penned up separate from the girls. I felt comfortable letting them all be together under supervision for the first couple of afternoons while I worked on his new pen because Lilly is bred and the younger two went out of heat two days before he came. But no more free time with the ladies after this! He was a lot more subdued the second day after being thoroughly rebuffed on the first. He’s smaller than these Amazons, so he learned very quickly that he can’t take advantage if they don’t want to play.

Also, there’s Cuzco to contend with. Cuzco doesn’t mind if Pac-Man plays nicely with his girls, but the minute there’s even a hint of flirting, Cuzco is on the scene in a flash and starts using Pac-Man for a dust mop. Nubbin is desperately in need of a friend right now so she went over and engaged Pac-Man in a bit of friendly head-butting on the back patio. That lasted about a minute before he stuck his tongue out, swatted Nubbin with his front leg, and started blubbing. Cuzco, who was quietly grazing with his back to them about thirty feet away, sprang into action like he’d been shot out of a pistol. I haven’t seen him move that fast in several years. He charged through the patio gate and broadsided Pac-Man so hard he was swept off his feet. Cuzco smeared him half-way across the patio before he managed to get back on his feet and beat a hasty exit. The mood for romance was thoroughly crushed and that was the last blub I heard from Pac-Man all day. In fact, he kind of kept away from the ladies completely after that except for some polite sniffing and looking (no more ogling, and he kept his eyes firmly on their faces!).

I put the two boys in their own pen last night and they seem to be getting along well. Pac-Man is terrified to come to the gate for treats if Cuzco is there, but he’s got some guts! He continues to challenge Cuzco to head-butting contests, and as long as they’re engaged in a legitimate fight, Cuzco is a gentleman and doesn’t pave the yard with him. They just go back and forth like Cuzco used to do with Nibbles before she died, which makes me think they’ll be good friends before long.

The girls are intrigued.

Lilly is also intrigued, but she has a certain amount of experience with these horny little beasts and will only investigate if she is the one on top.

Stay away from my girls!

Please let me out of this madhouse!

Pac-Man will be the father of Nubbin and Petunia’s babies this year!

He thinks he’s a real tough guy.

Cuzco thinks he’s an idiot. (I’m inclined to agree.)

I wonder why Daisy snapped at Pac-Man yesterday?

When it rains, it POURS! It has been WAY the heck too exciting around here these past couple of weeks, and here is the latest bit of drama:

Everybody look out! Pac-Man is here!

We found this little guy on Craigslist yesterday. We were looking for Alpine does (we still miss Nibbles and want more babies next summer ) but we found this fella instead, and he’s gonna help us get more babies!

He’s a nine-month-old 3/4 Nubian, 1/4 Alpine buckling, and he reminded me way too much of Cuzco to pass up. He’s as sweet as he can be, and he’s the perfect size to breed Nubbin and Petunia. He’s about two months older than them but is about the same size. I’m attributing a lot of that to the fact that he was bottle raised, as opposed to our spoiled little brats who were dam raised and allowed to nurse for five months. Pac-Man’s got nice enough conformation that I feel good breeding him to my little gals, and when he’s done with that job we’re going to wether him so he can grow up to be our next hiking buddy and cart puller. Hopefully he agrees with our plan for his life. 

Pac-Man is very sweet-natured, but a little shy right now. Apparently he was a huge lap baby until puberty hit, and then suddenly he got thrown into the rough-and-tumble world of the buck pen where he was the low man on the totem pole. It made him wary of attention, probably because he got pummeled every time he tried to take center stage. But he’s not skittish or unfriendly–it’s like he really wants to come up to us, but he’s looking over his shoulder the whole time, and he doesn’t want to be caught or restrained. He loves treats, however, so it shouldn’t take long to remind him that people are wonderful creatures.

Can I please repeat that!?!

Our new dog Daisy is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

I’m not sure there are enough exclamation points after that phrase, by the way.

We started letting the goats out during the daytime with Daisy on Christmas day. Before that, we were keeping everybody penned up all the time because I wasn’t sure Daisy would stay home, not knowing this new place or her new herd (which has had a hard time accepting her). But Christmas morning I decided it was time to let them all out to roam for a few hours unsupervised. It went really well. Daisy stayed with the goats except for a few brief forays into the surrounding oak brush to sniff out whatever stuff dogs like to sniff out. She likes to lay down about 20 feet from them, often on a hillock overlooking the area where the goats are grazing.

Until today, I had not heard this dog bark even once. Not even when we had company over on Christmas Eve. I was beginning to wonder if we had a dud dog. But I could not be more wrong!!! I let the goats out of their pen around 8:00 this morning and left them puttering around the house as they used to do before we got a dog. We almost never see predators during the day, so I’ve felt relatively safe letting everyone roam while the sun is up. Phil and I were in the office when we heard barking around 9:30 this morning. Daisy was in front of the house barking her head off, hackles raised in a giant puff-ball on her back. There were two coyotes in the front horse pasture. All the goats were behind the house, huddled against the porch railings. Daisy stayed out front and barked and charged viciously until the coyotes ran off with their tails between their legs. As soon as they were gone, she immediately ran around back to check on the goats.

I could not be more proud of this dog and I just had to share! 

What do you do with a goat that comes home from a romantic interlude with a hot-smellin’ buck in the dead of winter?

Why, take her into your house for a bath in your claw-foot tub, of course!

You can do this, Lilly! Upsa-daisy! (You’d have no problem getting in if your boyfriend was in the tub!)

Please don’t wash away my beautiful perfume!

Be thankful the water is warm, goat!

What better place to dry off and get warm than curled up with Phil on the basement couch near the wood stove? 

It’s been a hard week, and it might continue to be a bit crazy around here until dog and goats get used to each other. It seems like it’s taking forever, but I have to remind myself that I only introduced them on Friday. It seems like ages ago.

Our herd dynamics are definitely changing. Nubbin is still terrified of Daisy and has glued herself to Cuzco. She went into Cuzco’s shed last night and surprisingly, Cuzco let her stay. Cuzco is still terrified of Daisy. Every time the dog moves, a bird flies by, the wind blows, or I open the door, that poor goat jumps a mile and all his hair stands up. However, yesterday he started channeling that fear into aggression toward Daisy. He was terrorizing her last night during feeding time and wouldn’t let her come near me. I guess after he realized he can’t run from the dog, he’s going to make the dog run from him. By evening time, Daisy was afraid to be in the goat pen and started to whine and dig at the gate when I left. She gave up after a few scratches at the surface, but if this keeps up I’m going to run hotwire along the ground. She and Cuzco are just going to have to figure out how to co-exist. I’m glad Daisy isn’t aggressive with the goats, but with a beast like Cuzco in the pen, she’s going to have to stand up for herself.

Daisy spent all day with the goats and I feel comfortable leaving her there tonight. She stopped being scared of the goats this morning when she realized that Cuzco was more afraid of her than she was of him. I don’t think she’d ever seen a monster that size. Cuzco’s hair has been puffed up all day, and I don’t think he laid down once. Nubbin has glued herself to him in the mistaken belief that he’s the most likely to protect her from this new menace. Silly goat! She ought to realize that of all the creatures in the pen, Cuzco is the most likely to damage her.

Lilly was aggressive with Daisy this morning, but Daisy would only lie down in a submissive pose when Lilly approached her, and she would slink quietly away if Lilly hit her. So by now Lilly has decided that the dog is an uninteresting object and is already mostly bored of her.

I sat on the edge of the stanchion and tried to get Petunia to sniff noses with Daisy this morning. The second that dog touched Petunia, she leaped into my lap and started shaking like a leaf. I held onto her while Daisy gently licked Petunia’s nose. I thought it was sweet. Petunia wasn’t sure what to think, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t care for dog breath.