Greg: My sister, my cousin and I bought him at the State fair about 6 years ago. I estimate that he is 6.5 years old because he was very young when we got him. He is a pygmy goat. He’s named after the TV show Dharma and Greg (you know the one with Jenna Elfman). I’ve owned him my whole life, and I’ve taken care of him for quite a bit of it. He used to live with a bunch of other bigger goats, and he hated it. He’s perfectly happy being the only goat around with a mule to protect him. Sometimes Half-Pint will try to beat up on him, but he’s quite tough, and knows how to fight back.

He recently went through a very traumatic incident. I had him tethered outside while I was gone for a while, and when I came home he had been attacked by a large dog. It got him around the top of the neck and did quite a bit of damage. He would have died under any other circumstances, but Paula and I saved his life. He lived in our spare bathroom for about a week, and I even got him housetrained. He is definitely my baby. He actually hasn’t fully healed from that. He had one very large, deep tear wound. It was full of dirt and stuff. It’s been 3 months, and it doesn’t take constant care anymore. He should be able to heal on his own now. His neck is a little crooked now. We think that the dog broke one of the vertebrae. He may not recover ever, but he’s not in pain at all. That’s why the hair on his neck has been shaved off.

He is a very social goat. He loves people, he loves kids, he may be shy of your dog until he learns that it’s OK. He will follow you around if you let him. He liked to run. We exercise together, he’s very cute when he runs. He really really has a very clean affinity line. He will eat almost anything. He loves human food. He likes any kind of cracker. He LOVES bread. He eats paper, so make sure that you don’t have any important papers around him (though it’s not very good for him). Just make sure that he gets equal attention with Half-Pint, or he’ll get jealous.

I let him run around in the yard when I’m at home. He never goes very far, but I keep an eye on him. If you have flowers around, it’s not a good idea. Goats eat rosebushes and petunias, and I’m sure a large variety of other flowers. You can tether him up away from your flowers but next to blackberry bushes, and he’ll love you forever. He will devour them. He’s good that way.

The only health thing with Greg is that he has gotten lice before. It’s really odd, and I don’t know how he got them. You just have to put the Sevin on him, and you’re done. Repeat every once in a while. Goat lice can’t transfer to horses, dogs, cats or people, so you don’t need to worry about them at all. If he is itching a lot (or if the hair on a part of him is shorter than on other parts) it’s a sign that he has lice. Dusting isn’t bad for him or the mule at all, so it’s safe.

It’s a little bit of a loss for me to not be around him, so I may need to visit often for a while.

Half-Pint:

I’ve had him a lot less time. He is 18 years old, but as far as I can tell, he’s in perfect health. He has an iron stomach, and will eat anything. When the blackberries are out, he and Greg team up and attack them until there is nothing left but the stickers!

As far as I can tell, he has been used only as a companion for other horses his whole life, and no one has really worked with him at all for himself. When we got him, he didn’t know how to lead at all. He was very confused.

What I’ve learned from training him is that you just have to use the same word very firmly over and over again, and he’ll catch on.

He is a little shy of men sometimes. He may have been abused, but I think that the more likely reason is that he has always only ever had women take care of him. Jared didn’t participate much in his training or anything, but he got used to him being around, so that may not be a problem anymore.

I have a feeling that he is profoundly grateful to both Jared and I for taking such incredible care of him and loving him so much for himself. He will do ANYTHING that I ask him too. I’ve ridden him several times, and he has just let me. I’ll keep coming out and working with him (if that’s fine with you). I’m sure if Joni really got in communication with him he would let her ride him no problem. He’s got a really big heart.

I’ve been watching his feet. They are very tiny, but it’s been pretty muddy. I try to pick them out every day. If you don’t get to it, it’s not a big deal, just keep an eye on them, and make sure that they’re not gross.

He was pretty thin when I got him, and I notice that he’s ALWAYS hungry. I have wormed him, and it didn’t seem to make a difference. Just make sure he is eating enough. I was feeding him pellets, but he did just as good with some hay and grass.

I never let him out without being tied to something. He gets very excited and confused and will run away, and he is very hard to catch again.

Half-Pint is an excellent guard. If I had let him be near Greg when we was tethered outside, he never would have gotten hurt. I have seen him ward off elk before, and it was very cool. He would never let anything hurt something that he had affinity for. Mules are very capable of killing things like cougars.

I try to groom him and keep him clean. Just check and make sure that he’s doing fine. Make sure that there aren’t any ticks on him, and if you do find any, dust him with Sevin.

These two animals together have been my pride and joy for the last seven months. I’m sure that you’ll adore them. It doesn’t take nearly as much time to take care of them as it sounds like. Just make sure that you give them love.

Sorry this is so long, but this is most of the data that I can think of about these two. At least you should be acquainted now.

I am really a farmer at heart. It’s such an interesting thing! I grew up on a farm, but I never was really able to appreciate how lucky I was to be able to go outside into the great outdoors and create things for myself to do to entertain myself. I now consider it to be my greatest skill!

However, I never knew that I liked animals so much. Sure, I spent time helping with the cattle when needed, but I never really liked it.

When I went to boarding school in Oregon, I would help to take care of the animals, and even then I still didn’t LOVE IT. I was too busy doing my studying to notice this missing facet of my life.

However, when my husband and I got married and moved into our first house, there was a noticeable missing feature in my life.

My grandma called me up one day and told me that she was going to send me her goat. At first I didn’t like the idea of having to take care of him, etc., however I got very excited about it and had her send him over. Since then we have been inseperable.

My goat asked for a friend for his Birthday, and that’s where the mule is. Actually, the mule is Greg’s pet mule. They get along really great.

And while I had them, they were the most important part of my life. Almost as important as a kid.

Now, my husband and I have bought a condo, and they won’t fit in my patio (well, they would, but not very well), so it’s time to send them on. I have found the best place that is quite close to me for them to stay, but as I took them on their walk today, I realized that there was going to be quite the void in my life with them gone.

It’s now on my list that further down the road when I have a house and some kids that I once again have a barn and a goat with a pet mule… until then, a big picture of them will have to do.

I’ve recently had a nice run in with having to prepare myself to being able to help present Jared in the job world. He’s been looking at many good jobs recently, and we were just in the process of getting him to look good, so he had to write a resume. He has a fairly nice one.

I got to thinking. I wrote a resume long ago, but I forgot about it. I thought about all of the things that I have done and accomplished so far. I’m not yet legal to drink, but I still have all this incredible experience in so many different areas.

1.) I grew up on a farm and am very experienced with animals. That’s very awesome. I know how to clean a pen, clean an animal, clip an animal, take care of a sick animal, know when an animal is sick, etc. That’s a nice skill to have.

2.) I know how to run a movie projector.

3.) I am a trained and qualified 4-H leader. It will be exciting to put these skills into use when I move to Sherwood and join up with the clubs there.

4.) I worked at a bagel store for a while, and can prepare bagels and handle customer service.

5.) I worked as a cashier at a grocery store, so I’m very experience there.

6.) I worked as an Office Manager at the Delphian School for two years. I was then promoted to working in the HR department. I loved that job.

7.) I’m a trained volunteer minister from the Church of Scientology (see all the cool help that’s being given after the tsunami disasters at www.volunteerminister.org).

8.) I’m a sophomore in college.

9.) I’m married and I own a house (those aren’t things that one would put on a resume, but WOW).

10.) I’ve been hired on certain weekends to work as the manager of a horse barn.

11.) I’m a trained irrigator (though I’d never tell anyone that).

12.) I know how to operate a tractor.

13.) I know how to train a miniature mule to ride.

14.) I’ve been working as a college counsellor.

etc…….

Make a list of all the cool things you can do. It’s fun.