Introduction

This is not so much a traditional FAQ as it is a summary of the personalities exhibited by the individual goats and the partnership that they have established within their tiny herd.  Charlie, Ella, Jack and Sally are described in a few paragraphs and then a summary of their country home is provided at the end.

Charlie is the big brother.  And, he's a very bossy big brother.  Most animals, apparently including humans, need to extert some form of instinctual, or premeditated in the human case, dominance.  Dominance imposes an order over a herd or pack which simplifies the decision making process--although it's open to question whether the decision is simply faster rather than better.  In Charlie's case, this means that no one gets scratched unless he's getting scratched.  If affection is being dispensed, then Charlie is at the head of the line.  As soon as he sees his brother or sisters getting any attention, he jumps the line.  Feeding time poses a quandary for Charlie as the four goats are fed in two bowls and Charlie wants to eat from both of them simultaneously.  He spends the first few minutes of each meal running back and forth between the bowls to make sure they have the same kind of grain in exactly the same amounts.  He is extremely concerned that one bowl may have better food or more food--which has never happened ever, but hope springs eternal--so he needs to check each bowl a few dozen times to make sure.  Of course, each time he runs to the other bowl he chases his brother and sisters off with his sharp horns--rather than just peeking in for a quick check.

Despite his obvious leadership qualities (he's the biggest, and the only one with razor sharp horns), Charlie is also a determined follower.  When a very friendly little dog visited the goat kids, Charlie was not sure what to make of this new "threat."  Though he's by far the strongest, Charlie insisted that his sister, Ella, was always positioned between himself and the dog--just in case of an attack.  Charles Darwin would explain this by saying that Charlie was protecting the gene pool of the dominant animal through his altruistic willingness to sacrifice his beloved sister.  It smells more like that "little man" hiding inside of the big man--Charlie may be the kind of goat that only cries on the inside.

Charlie's instincts as a follower saved his life when he was only a few months old.  He developed a touch of illness and fell off his feed.  He recovered from what was probably just a bug, but didn't recover his appetite.  He spent a few weeks just eating a little grass here, a little hay there, and was losing weight.  In a young kid this can be disastrous.  Despite many attempts to shove a variety of grains directly into his mouth he had basically lost interest in food.  We thought we might lose him until we put him in the same pen with Ella, Jack, and Sally.  Those three always pigged out with aplomb.  Grain was no sooner set before them than it disappeared into the four quadrants of their ruminant digestive engine.  Remember, Charlie can't stand to have someone get something when he is not.  Literally within minutes of showing Charlie the three of them gulping down their chow--you can guess of course--he butted them out of the way and cleaned out the bowl.  He's done fine since, and shows no gratitude at all, but he can thank his little brother and sisters for his very life.

Charlie is part African pgymy goat and part Alpine.  If you've ever had, or wanted, a big brother that both swaggered under his own authority and taught you all the best fighting moves by gently beating them into you--then Charlie is your tough love goat.  One positive aspect of Charlie's comfort with hegemony is that he also takes orders extremely well.  Charlie is always the first one in the shed when bedtime is announced and he gets quite insistent if the feeding schedule is off by more than a few minutes.  When asked to sit still for his monthly toenail trimming, he just grins and bears it, rather than kicking about and getting nicked like some goats we know.  

Ella is the oldest sister.   As noted in her first book, Meet the Goat Kids, Ella is the explorer.  Ella always takes the high ground.  She walks point for the group and scans the horizon for any threats.   Ella is always  first to leap on anything new that comes into the yard and is a constant threat to vehicles that park in the driveway.  

Ella is the most interested, of the four, in human affection.  Charlie craves the interaction because he doesn’t want to be left out of anything.  Jack and Sally just love to get scratched where they can't easily reach themselves.  Ella, however, will leap into your lap and demand her due mead of attention.  She is the only one of these four that will just sit in your lap and stare into your eyes with that oblivious joy that feels like an incipient communication from some sentient recess.  Her tolerance for human contact is clearly defined, though, by some inner clock.  When enough is enough, she returns to her job, riding shotgun for Charlie, and ignores all entreaties to the contrary.

Ella is the only goat that seems to have a positive influence on Charlie’s behavior.  Charlie defers to her intelligence and vision.  He lets Ella eat beside him and walk beside him.  Charlie recognizes Ella’s worldview as broader than his own and cedes some of his karmic space to Ella in response.  Jack and Sally will leap out of the way if Charlie even throws a glare in their direction; Ella just stares back until a horn or two are thrown.  Jack will jump before Charlie has even fully turned his head to give him the old stink eye.  Ella tolerates Charlie’s idiosyncrasies bemusedly and tries to defer to his strength without being led astray by his bullheaded notions.  Ella keeps Charlie in check for the good of the larger herd.  

Ella never directly fights with Charlie--she leaves that up to Jack.  Ella, Jack, and Sally are constantly wrestling with each other, but only Jack takes Charlie on head to head.  Must be a male thing.

Jack is the younger brother.  He is the sweetest of the four goats, the most timid, and the one that hangs back a little when there's some adventure afoot.  Some people say he's the prettiest goat, but it seems unfair to make comparisons out loud that might hurt the other's feelings.  Jack is also the goat that seems to draws on a inner well-being that expresses itself as pure happiness.  Jack does not seem conflicted about who he is and takes little or no offense at Charlie's overbearing attitude, Ella's gifted athleticism, and Sally's obstreperousness.  Jack's happiness manifests itself through his dancing;  although his dancing has lessened in frequency as he grows older, Jack often just breaks into a little twisting routine for no obvious reason.  He scrunches down and throws himself into the air as high as he can, twisting and turning, while trying to re-aim his feet for the ground at the last moment.  At his most exuberant he will run at top speed and leap into the air, sometimes crashing to the ground on his back, but quickly recovering to leap again.  His is a simple expression of joy, unmotivated by any external influence.

Jack's timidity shows in many of the games the goats play together.  When Charlie and Ella are running up into the big sloping trees behind their meadow, Jack will climb up a couple of steps and admire the view from a safe perch.  When all the goats traversed the log bridge to cross the stream and reach the woods, Jack was the only goat that fell into the water.  Jack was the last goat to leap into the chairs on the back porch and Charlie is still the only goat that has perched on top of the barbecue grill.  When it's time to play with the humans, Jack is very careful not to intrude on Charlie's space.  Jack loves to get his back scratched and will smash into Sally to take her place under anyone's fingers, but when Charlie steps in Jack will take three steps back and quietly circle the action imploring with his eyes that someone, anyone, sidestep Charlie and respond to Jack's entreaties.  Although Jack likes humans, he dislikes being picked up and will hunch down whenever he sees a pair of hands reaching for him.  One hand good, two hands bad from Jack's perspective.  But, unlike Sally, Jack will simply recoil a little and allow himself to be picked up; Sally actively tries to escape.

Despite Jack's clear understanding of Charlie's size and strength, Jack still engages in the habitual head smacking fun which goats seem to enjoy, or need.  The fighting is clearly not to the death--at least within this small group.  If an ear or a leg starts to itch at any point in the fight, all the action stops while the offending body part is chewed or rubbed.  No one takes a cheap shot while the other combatant has a mouth full of itchy paw.  And the fighting is very precise.  Charlie always jabs his dangerously sharp horns just to each side of Jack's head when they clash.  Many goats presumably fight to win, but these goats don't seem to have that much to prove.  Curiously, there's no crying in goat fighting.  The hardest whack, right to the ribs, even by Charlie's horns, just elicits a withering look that shouts "Nyah, Nyah, Nyah."  Tough goats.

Jack is the kind of goat that makes you want to call him "Jackie."  He's just the sweetest little pygmy with nothing to prove and everything to enjoy.  

Sally is the youngest sister.  Does every youngest sister in the world, goat or human, act exactly the same?  Sally wants attention, but doesn't want to be treated like she's the little goat.  She was the "runt" in her litter and probably half the size of Ella and Jack when they were babies.  The original thought was that Sally would love to be "babied," but she is the only one of the four that will actively flail around and try to resist when you pick her up.  It's not that she dislikes humans--she likes them very much--but only on her own terms.  Being picked up offends her sense of independence.  Like Anteus, who drew his strength from the ground, Sally wants to have her feet firmly planted and she wants to be in charge of where they're planted.

Sally nips to get attention and has taught all the other goats this miserable trick.  She very much wants her back scratched and her neck rubbed, but if it's not being done well, or if your hand wanders onto Jack's back, then she starts chewing and pulling on your pant leg, your shirt, your hair, your fingers--whatever is in proximity.  It's a very effective training device she imposes on the humans.  Although people should not react; this is the epitome of negative reinforcement;  Sally is very hard to ignore when she's pulling the leg hairs off your ankles one by one.  She was the first goat, and the only goat to do this, for the first few months.  The others quickly noticed that Sally was enjoying the preponderance of the back scratching and everyone began nibbling for attention.  Charlie is the only goat reluctant to use this approach--a little undignified for his taste--although he will resort to the technique if he's clearly being ignored.

Sally is the only one of the four that really objects during the course of her nail trimming.  Naturally she won't sit still for a second during the procedure, requires the most time, and jerks her foot at exactly the wrong moment when the blades are closing.  Sally is a defining portrait of "lovable, but fiesty."  

Sally and Jack are very close, but Sally is not timid like Jack.  Sally will wander off in the fields when they are hiking about and the others will have to call her back.  She does not have the natural athleticism of Ella, but she will take a run at anything.  Thanks to a good diet, she also gained ground on her original status as the runt and is almost as big as Ella and Jack.  Sally would insist she is just as big if you measure from her tip toes and include her extremely long luxurious hair.      

The Goat Kids  

Obviously not genetically related, just based on their appearance, The Goat Kids, are "brothers" and "sisters" in the stronger sense of family.  They play together, they explore together and they stay together.  Anyone who gets more than fifty feet from the others, or worse, wanders out of the line-of-sight, initiates a cacaphony of bleating that doesn't stop until the lost member is recovered.             

Goats love to tussle and a great deal of bashing goes on about all manner of offenses big and small.  The biggest fights are about who gets to sit in which chair on the porch.  For reasons that are not all that obvious to humans, some chairs are optimal for lazing through an afternoon and some are not.  A great deal of hashing and bashing ensues whenever the goats take up position on the wooden bench and each one seizes the optimal few inches of space.  That particular bench has a rocking action and these goats seem to enjoy swaying in a summer breeze as much as the next goat.

With four goats, their personalities seem very distinct.  Perhaps with forty or four hundred there's less apparent differentiation, but probably not, just less time to make each one's acquaintance.  Goats, more like snowflakes or fingerprints than grains of sand, insist on putting their own twist on each turn.

The Goat Kids live a seemingly idyllic life, from a human perspective.  Lotus Pond (pictured above) provides a picturesque backdrop of giant Lotus leaves dotted with pink and white flowers blooming from early Summer through Fall.  The two acre pond is surrounded by five acres of meadow and framed by another four acres of wooded hills beyond the pond.  There is a small stream, almost dry during the late summer, that bisects the property; leading upstream to miles of protected wetlands between housing developments and heading downstream to feed a much larger river.  From the pond to the stream there is a small spillway, maybe 20 feet high, with a rocky granite incline that the goats can climb.  With acres of natural wonder surrounding them they spend much of their day sitting in the rocking chairs on the porch admiring nature from a comfortable distance.         

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