The Goat: Troy’s Version

Of all the stories our family shares, this one probably tops the list.  Some of us just laugh ourselves silly when we re-tell this, and some cringe in terror. We aptly named the goat “Billy”.  What follows is my recollection of our time with Billy the goat.

When Jennifer was about 14 or 15, she told us she wanted a baby goat for a pet.  Chris and I were thinking one of those pigmy goats would be fine and we lived on a few acres at the time so we had the room.  We also had a covered “shed” area that we could fence in so Billy would have room to roam and a covered place to sleep.  We had no idea how you went about getting a goat.  Well, ww found out real quick that pygmy goats are expensive.  We wanted to do this on the cheap.  You get what you pay for folks!

Our Lucky Day!

One day we were at a feed store, similar to a Tractor Supply store, to buy some dog food.  We noticed a posting on their bulletin board about a free goat, so we wrote down the number and called when we got home.  We drove to their house and found Billy in the dog kennel with some Labradors.  He had been raised with them so he thought he was a dog.  His favorite treat was peanut butter dog biscuits.  He was a cool looking goat I must say!  His horns stuck straight up, not curving like most goats you see.  The horns were about 2.5 feet long each.  He was also mostly black, except for a really cool white racing stripe right down his back.  I wish we had a picture of him.

So we had absolutely no idea how to take care of a goat, or even what we were getting ourselves in for.  We had a minivan to get everyone home, and the 3 kids sat in one bench seat while Billy the kid, took up the rear hatch.  I know those people were watching us drive away saying to themselves, “Suckers!  AND there are NO returns!”  We got him home and tied him up near the shed and all was good….for about 2 days.

…Or Was It?

Pretty soon Billy started getting frisky.  He was a 1year old male goat and goats evidently do strange things when they get to 1 year old.  He would basically pee onto his face.  I don’t know if it was actual pee or some kind of scent marker, but he did it a LOT.  He became hornier each day and not because of his horns.  I guess it was maybe a week before he escaped the first time.  We had gone somewhere and when we got back Billy was roaming freely.  He did not go too far, but he had broken the leash we had on him.

I got a bigger, better leash, and that lasted maybe 3 days.  He was a very determined goat.  All of us would go out and spend time with Billy at first, but then he started peeing on not just his face, but everyone and everything else.  We even had a vet come look at him because we thought he was insane or something, but she said, “No that’s normal.  It’s why the Amish don’t keep male goats past 1 year old.”  NOW you tell us!!  Folks, there is a REASON why goats are associated with Satan.

Billy The Goat Is NOT What We Bargined For

Billy the goat got more and more aggressive as time went on.  When I was around him I had to watch close because he would come close to you and sometimes even try to head but you.  When he did that I just grabbed his horns and forced him away, showing him who was boss.  One day I heard Stephanie yelling out in the back yard.  Then I heard Jennifer also yelling.  When I looked out the window into the back yard I saw Stephanie and Billy head to head.  Steff had Billy’s horns and they were pretty much in a Mexican standoff. 

I thought the whole scene was hilarious and couldn’t stop laughing.  The whole family is yelling.  Stephanie’s  yelling for help while in a tug of war with the goat.  Chris is yelling, “Do something!”  Casey is too little to jump in and drag the goat off his sister and is yelling encouragement to her and Jen was yelling, “Do something dad!”  Well I WAS doing something….I was rolling on the floor in hysterics!

Eventually I did get out and rescue Steff.  I thought that this was a situation that was likely to repeat itself, so she needed to know how to disengage Billy if the situation happened again, especially if no one was around to help.   I think Billy even chased Stephanie and a friend up a tree one day.

Mr. Connelly

Our neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Connelly.  They were a retired couple and Mr. Connelly had a small butcher shop right next door.  There were a few times when we came home to find out Billy the goat had got loose and Mr. Connelly corralled him and tied him back up for us.   He also had a concrete or ceramic deer statue in his front yard.

At this point we were trying to give Billy away.  We had contacted some Amish folks thinking they would take a free goat, but when we said he was a male, they all declined.  We couldn’t think of anywhere else that would take a goat.  It’s not like there is a “Goat pound” that takes in wandering goats. 

One day while the kids were at school, Chris had gone out on an errand.  When she got home she called me at work and explained that Mr. Connelly had a run in with Billy while she was out.  Seems like Billy got loose again and was so horny he mounted Mr. Connelly’s fake deer and was trying to make “special friends” with it.  Mr. Connolly tried to shoo him away, so Billy charged him and head butted him in the knee and actually injured him.  Mr. Connolly grabbed his shot gun and did us a HUGE favor by shooting poor old Billy the goat.  Mr. Connolly said he did not want the goat to charge his grandkids that often came over on weekends.

Thank You!

I think Mr. Connolly was pretty shocked at Chris thank him so very much for what he did.  We did go over to his house later when I got home and asked if he was alright and if his knee was ok.  He was so apologetic about shooting the goat and we just thanked him over and over.  We explained that we were at our wits end about Billy and did not know how we were going to get rid of him.  By justifyingly shooting Billy, our problems were solved.   The kids were not sorry at all about the incident, especially Stephanie.

The next day Chris and I loaded Billy onto a plastic tarp and drug him to the woods.  We dug a hole, but it was very difficult because of tree roots.  When we finally got about 3 feet deep and I said, that’s good enough.  We dropped Billy in but then we had another problem.  His horns were so long they stuck about 2 feet into the air past the lip of the hole.  There was no way I was gonna spend another hour digging 2 feet deeper, so I went to the house and grabbed a saw.  I cut the horns off and we laid them beside Billy and covered him up.  So ends the saga of Billy the goat.

Post Script

Post script:  I drove over to the old neighborhood today.  Mrs. Connelly passed away a few years after this incident, in 2003.  I knew where she was buried, because we would see Mr. Connolly sitting by her graveside most weekends when we drove into Leonardtown.  I visited the grave site today and found out he passed away in 2018.  I did get a big smile when I saw the deer on their tombstone!  It looked just like the one he had in the front yard.