Reading this book may save your goat's life

By D. G. Pugh

Saunders/Elsevier

468 pages

By Comrade Reviewer Overcoat

Before you say, “But I don’t have a goat,” pause. Ruminate. You may not have a goat (yet), but consider the goats of thy neighbor. The same law enjoining you to tend to your neighbor's business and to be careful of his ass, also demands that you tend to his goats. Pause again before you say, “But my neighbor doesn't have goats.” If he doesn’t have goats now, he will (pet goating currently being a fashion statement).  And since you punctiliously discharge your duties to your neighbor's business, ass, and goats (present or future), you need to be prepared.  You cannot begin learning too early.

If you have been raised in the United States, chances are great (but ever-diminishing) that you have a number of misconceptions about goats that need clearing up.

Misconception 1: Goats smell.  Female goats do not smell at all except with their noses.  Male goats smell and smell with their noses unless of course they have been “wethered” (technical goatspeak for “castrated”).  In the presence of willing does (as the female goats are called), males perfume themselves.  This excites the does and leads felicitously to more goats ~150 days later. As for you if your nose is offended by the smell, cut it off.

Misconception 2: Goats are not nice.  False.  Goats are social creatures.  They enjoy talking to you and to each other.  Indeed, if your neighbor owns but one goat, you need to speak to said neighbor sternly. A lone goat will pine.  You do not want a pining goat living next door.  If you permit such a situation to continue, your conscience will trouble you for the rest of your life, and your failure to act may prohibit your passing to the place of your choice after death.

Misconception 3:  Goats will eat anything.  They will not.  They are browsers not grazers.  They nibble a bit here and there.  You cannot use them as lawnmowers.  Blessed are the goats that grazeth in the fields.

Misconception 4: Goats are tough.  Yes and no.  When goats feel well they feel quite well, but when they feel ill they often choose to die.  While it is not quite true that a sick goat is a dead goat, this statement corresponds closely enough to the truth to make reading this book vital. Physician heal thy neighbor’s goats. 

Again I can hear your complaints. “If my neighbor has goats,” you say, “let him heal them himself.”  Again pause and consider.  You neighbor may be at work, on vacation, kidnapped by aliens, or dead.  In which case you must behave like a good Samaritan or a girl/boy scout. 

You need to know what to feed the goat, what additional nutritional needs the goat has, what to do in case the goat gets scours (technical goatspeak for diarrhea), and how to deliver kids (technical goatspeak for baby goats).  In case your neighbor's goat hangs out with sheep, you need to know that while the goat enjoys copper, the amount needed by the goat will kill the sheep. Too much copper and the sheep keels over never to rise again.

Finally, you need to know the meaning of really big words like theriogenology, auriculopalpebral nerve block, and pseudorinderpest so you will not embarrass yourself and others at parties.  As I do not wish to spoil the book for you, I will not define these words here.  D. G. Pugh’s book Sheep and Goat Medicine will answer any questions you may have about total goat care. It will also answer the same questions about sheep, but this review addresses only the goat question. Buy this book today. Do not delay.  Remember goats are like grapes in the wilderness and will bring you joy like ripe figs (unless the goats get to the figs first).