We were supposed to get Bernie...

We were supposed to get Bernie...

Why get goats anyway?  We're certainly not farmers; I don't want to milk them or eat them; we were quite happy with 2 lazy cats...Who knows why? Maybe because when your teenage daughter saves all her money for a year, goats sound so much more wholesome than makeup and ipods; the spectre of leaving-for-college-empty-nest looming in the horizon - it just seemed like something to bond us together.  A fun family activity. A learning experience. Why not? Little did I know...

Until you've bottled, soothed-to-sleep and made dinner one-handed with a newborn goat tucked in the folds of your sweatshirt, you cannot possibly comprehend the lure of goat-raising. We had spent a day at Aunt Karen's Animal Rescue helping to care for her newest aquisitions - a pair of tiny Nigerian Dwarf kids. Rejected by their mother, they were barely 2 pounds each and fully dependent on bottles of milk and human comfort. The little doeling was having an especially hard time taking the bottle - weak, dehydrated  and inconsolable as we tried everything to get her to suck on the tiny nipple attached to a small soda bottle. When she finally caught on near the end of the day, drinking a full 3 ounces and then bouncing energetically around the kitchen, it was an indescribable moment. We celebrated with her and I knew, as a pediatric nurse and mother of premature twins (now teenagers), that our family was meant for this. We needed our own "bottle-babies."

Back home, I searched craigslist and local breeders for the elusive Nigerian Dwarf kids to adopt, finally finding a nearby woman who described her newest "bottle baby," a tiny "raise-in-your-kitchen" buckling (baby boy goat) she called Bernie. Abandoned by his goat mother, he had bonded to humans and was apparently a snuggly sweetheart. She also promised to pick out another goat we could have to be his companion once he grew a bit older. Delighted, we made arrangements to pick him up that Saturday at 2:00, purchasing supplies and preparing his new home.

By the time we reached the farm, Bernie was already in our hearts. Then - heartbreak - as the breeder looked at us quizzically and asked who we were here to see. I explained that, as arranged, we were here for Bernie. She frowned and said that he was gone; he'd been picked up earlier. Apparently someone else had seen her sign and stopped by, and she'd given them Bernie by mistake. (Sick at heart and furious as I was then, I can now understand that sometimes goat-raising does interfere with mental clarity...) There was nothing we could do but look at the other, older goats in the barn. We were not leaving without goats, that I knew.