My wife has has for the past three years had a white goat she named Squiggles. Named by the funny dark line down her back, she was bottle fed from birth. Her mother rejected her. Spoiled as a pet the young nanny preferred being inside even in warm or sunny weather. Took a long time to get her to spend a night outside without the crying – the goat’s, not my wife Joyce.

Exactly a year later, our oldest granddaughter presented us with two more from the same mother who rejected Squiggles. This pair, male and female we named Ren and Stimpy. And again we had to bottle feed them too. Goats tend to become spoiled when a human woman is perceived as mother. And especially when that mother does indeed spoil them. 

For more than two years since, these goats, these pets, have provided a lot of entertainment. Squiggles gave birth two two in the winter last year who did not live. Same this year. Stimpy gave birth to two this year and one survives: a male I call Buddy.

The one thing the three older goats have in common is that they have a talent for escaping enclosures. Wood, wire, fence, metal. Nothing holds them. Our fence in places is welded wire six to seven feet tall. Doesn’t matter. Under, around or through, they find a way. I have actually witnessed Stimpy leap a five foot fence like a deer without scraping her belly. In fact, there are some times we have no idea how or where they escaped. Once out they roam the neighborhood.

That might have come to an end. Squiggles is, as a grand old Dame now, too fat to escape. And Buddy is a little more than four months (and raised entirely by his mother, not bottle fed) has never learned her talent. 

Days ago, we lost Ren and Stimpy. They both died (and while we are not sure of the cause) it looks like they ate something that poisoned them. Mama was devastated. Now, the goat enclosure may indeed be enough to hold the two left. 

You see, Stimpy had earned another name: Houdini. She could literally escape anything. In fact, mama would sometimes chain all four goats up in the front yard and use them like a lawnmower. Chains?  Ha! Chains couldn’t hold Stimpy if she wanted free. And like Houdini, she kept her secrets close to her vest. She didn’t share them with Ren or Squiggles, nor her son. And she certainly didn’t share them with us. We’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars wastefully just ridiculously trying to keep Houdini in. Even now there is 100 feet of fence that waits to be put up as reinforcement (when the rain stops).

For years mama could go outside and bay at her goats, “Maaaaaa.”  No matter where they were, inside their enclosure or somewhere in the neighborhood they would call her back “Ma!” And run to her. Sadly it seems, there won’t be anybody let back in from the road. They will be right where we put them. Houdini is gone.