Fighting with the crazy goat lady across the road

Sigh.

I live out in the country.  Stepping outside on a hot and muggy summer's evening means the smell of the dairy farm that's about a mile away.  The dairy farm doesn't bother me too much because you can't always smell it, just when the wind blows just right.  The crazy goat lady across the road on the other hand drives me plum crazy.  

She's batty.  It actually started out with the batty old mom who lived there when we first moved in to our house.  A couple of years ago the old lady and her husband both died.  I was sad.  Especially because I referred to her as the batty old goat lady. 

Well then the kids moved in.  I assume they are kids of the original old couple but they could be nieces or nephews or aliens or whatever.  Well there is one woman who is always out and about with the goats that I can recognize from afar.  She's always out there chasing her goats or dragging them to the shed to be milked or whatever.  Oh yeah, she tends to wear fluorescent orange vests and rubber boots and a knitted stocking cap.  It helps me to identify her.  Then there are various other people who come and go.  I honestly don't know how many people live there and don't care.  Well it's this one lady with the rubber boots and glow-in-the-dark vest who I can recognize who is the new batty old goat lady. 

I do have to go back to last year to let you get a feel for why I've labeled her the batty old goat lady.  Over on their little mini-farm they have probably 20 or 30 goats, three or four dogs which are chained and like to bark....a lot.  Then they have some geese, a couple of horses, and chickens.  Now all the other animals are chained, fenced, and otherwise contained.  The chickens are free range chickens.  And I don't mean free range as in they run around on their own property, no, I mean free range as in they hang out at my house and crap on my back porch.  They always have a flock of 10 or 12 and then in spring the chicks start hatching and growing and getting run over on the road that's between our houses.  All summer long their flock will grow to 25 or 30 chickens or more as the chicks hatch but by fall they'll be back down to 10 or 12 as the chickens get picked off by passing motorists.  It's awful and it drives me crazy. 

Well not too long after the new crazy goat lady moved in my mom crossed the road to look at the goats.  This time of year there are always tons and tons of baby goats.  So cute.  Almost makes the crazy goat lady tolerable.  My mom never got on their property, just stood at the road and watched the baby goats.  Unfortunately she had her dog on a leash with her.  Crazy goat lady came out of her house and screamed - not mildly yelled - but screamed, "Get that dog away from my goats."

Jake the dog did nothing but stand on the road with my mom.  That was incident #1.

Continue reading after the jump...

Remember the free range chickens?  Well they occasionally like to free range into my yard.  My fenced yard.  My fenced yard where I have a lab (bird dog), lab and blue heeler cross (bird dog and crazy mixed), and a mcnab (cow dog, enjoys herding things, doesn't know what he's doing so he chews up things he's attempting to herd).  Do you see where I'm going?  Well the three little chickens that went into my yard was a bantam rooster and two hens.  They're tiny chickens, cute as can be, not very quick footed.  I heard a commotion, went out to find Festus (black lab, bird hunting dog) holding one of the little hens down and sort of nuzzling her.  He wasn't quite sure what to do as I'm sure she didn't have quite the same taste as a wet mallard.  Between me and my kids we got the other two chickens chased down and tossed over the fence (they were fine) and I scooped up the little dazed hen.  She was alive, dazed and confused, all slobbery and wet and missing her tail feathers.  Well I walked her across the road to hand deliver her to crazy goat lady.  Our exchange went something like this....

Me: "Your chickens got in the yard with the dogs, I'm so sorry.  I got the others over the fence but this one looks a little out of it.  I hope she lives."

Crazy goat lady: "That black dog of yours, the big one.  As soon as your husband leaves for work in the morning he jumps the fence and goes over and shits on my tarps."

Me (stifling a chuckle): "Oh."

Crazy goat lady: "You should keep him in the yard or he might end up getting shot."

Me:  "Oh, well he doesn't jump the fence anymore after the last time he jumped over he got hung up on the fence and cut his leg.  He's stopped jumping the fence now.  Sorry."

Then she just took her chicken, turned around and walked away.  Incident #2. 

There have been other odd exchanges in the last year, but today was the first time I actually stood up to her.  The rest of the time I was more amused and surprised, today she just pissed me off. 

So about 10:30 this morning my dogs started going crazy in the front yard.  I could tell there was something interesting out there.  So I went and looked out the window and coming down the road was what looked like a horse with a dog following it.  I watched for a bit because it was an odd site.  As they drew closer I could see it was a great dane (the horse) and a rottweiler.  Hmmm.  Now I've had my dogs get loose and run off and even had onehit by a car and killed so I hate to see dogs running down the road loose.  I climbed over the fence and stood on the road and called to them.  They were probably the distance of a city block away from me.  The rottweiler stopped quite a ways away, but the great dane kept trotting towards me.  He stopped maybe 20 feet away and looked at me.  Now I'm not stupid and I don't underestimate dogs in the least.  I wasn't going to go and chase him down, but I could tell by the way he was standing that he was curious about me.  He took a couple of steps towards me, I did the whole dog call (lips pursing) thing.  He took a couple more steps, I called, he stepped, I called, he stepped.  We did this until he got maybe six paces in front of me.  He was wagging his tail and didn't look nervous or scared in the least - he was just acting like a dog running loose who knew he wasn't supposed to be running loose.  He had a collar on which is what I was looking for.  I wanted to see if he had tags.  I figured if he was friendly enough to approach he'd probably be friendly enough for me to check for tags with a phone number. 

Just about this time the crazy goat lady (who was out milking her goats) decided to scream at the dogs.  "Get outta here, get, shoo, shoo, get outta here."

The dogs turned tail and bolted.

Friggin' idiot. 

"I was trying to see if he had tags."

"They were here this morning chasing my goats!"

Uhmm, no they weren't.  "I'm sorry, but they were NOT chasing your goats."

My dogs had been outside since about 4 this morning.  If those two horse/dog crosses had been over chasing goats we would have known it.  Besides, the goats have a 5 foot tall ranch panel fence all the way around that dogs can't get through unless they're itty bitty. 

Crazy goat lady. 

So I crawled back over my fence, came in the house and showered.  Then I started getting mad.  What the heck was she thinking?  I was going to drop it but then when I left to go get some groceries she was outside...just egging me on.  Figuratively of course.

I got into my car, sat there for a minute, and then drove over and pulled into her driveway, rolled down my window and asked if I could talk to her for a minute.

"You know, I'm a 34-year-old adult woman and was attempting to see if those dogs had some sort of identification.  I know I would like someone to call me if my dogs were loose before they ended up getting hit by a car.  The next time I'm doing something that doesn't involve you, please butt out!"

"I'm a home owner and they were endangering my goats!"

"By trotting down the road?"

"They were here this morning chasing my goats."  I went on to explain to her that no, they were not in fact chasing her goats this morning.  

Crazy goat lady.

"I'm a home owner and I was protecting my goats."

"I live on this road too, you're not the most important thing on this road and neither are your goats.  I'm allowed to do whatever the hell I want.  Butt out next time!"

With that she turned and stormed off. 

"And pen up your chickens!"

Ha! I feel so much better now. 

Comments

[Beverly]

I AM country. The smell of a dairy wouldn't bother me at all. There's nothing better than walking into your own barn and have the sweet smell of fresh hay hit your nostrils. I would protect my horses and my goats with every ounce of my being. The goats are my "family"; I love them, care for them, talk to them, pet them, and even hike with them into the back country as they dutifully carry all my supplies in their pack saddles. They are more than "just goats". Perhaps we should live the country to the country folks!

[Shannon]

Kathy, you honestly know nothing about me. Insenuating that I'm somehow a city-dwelling fool who just moved in and out of the blue started giving the poor, innocent, just-trying-to-protect-her-livestock lady across the road a hard time shows that. When I wrote the post I was just blowing off a little neighborly steam and telling a funny story, nothing more. I've never done anything to the woman and yet I've been screamed at on multiple occasions for completely imagined infractions. Six years I've had to deal with the woman thinking that she and her goats are all that matter on this road despite the fact that there are several other homes besides hers. The fact that her dogs are constantly getting off their chains and harassing my animals seems to be inconsequential. The fact that she lets her flock of chickens run loose so they can crap all over my property (including my porch and fences) and the roosters can attack my kids doesn't seem to matter either. The only thing that seems to matter is the fact that I called her the crazy old goat lady. Well I don't call her that because her lifestyle is different than my own and, therefore, a foreign concept to me because it's actually not at all, I call her the crazy old goat lady because she's actually completey nuckin' futs. All I can say is the day I buy a new house and get the heck away from here can't come soon enough.

[Kathy]

When you move into a neighborhood, or across the street from someone with livestock -- ya gotta accept that there's likely to be some unusual (to you) things going on. Those of us with livestock who live in the country are being encroached upon by city folk who want to get away and move out here with us. Then they want us to be like them??? Dogs roaming free are an absolute nuisance to livestock -- livestock are prey and dogs are predators. I have 6 dogs..... one is a livestock guardian. A huge Anatolian Shepherd that barks at anything alive that does not belong in his livestock yard -- even squirrels or rabbits. He won't chase or kill the unless they attack his livestock. He will only defend or attack as much as he needs to to get the threat to go away -- Anatolians are like that. But most dogs, like my 5 house dogs will chase and kills something for fun. My dogs are all fenced. I have neighbors (former city people) who think that since they are in the country that their dogs can run free. If they run over here.... they often don't make it home. If my Anatolian doesn't chase them off before I can get out there with my rifle anyway..... See once the raoming dogs see my livestock they return again and again to try to kill the easy targets. They've killed baby goats, calves and several chickens and left them laying dead. I have 4' cattle panel fences, but some of these dogs can scale them like an easy hurdle. So please sunderstand that their way of live is different and you moved into a place where they already existed. They aren't going to be like you or think like you or consider the same things a threat that you do -- they have different experiences, that doesn't make them crazy for protecting what they love. Goats that are stressed from dogs can end up with stress related illnesses like enterotoxemia, and will give less milk even if they don't become ill.

The earth and sun don't revolve around either of you and you both have your own perspectives, respect that.

[goatlady]

I came across this story quite by accident, and blogged it this morning,
http://getyergoat-goatgifts.blogspot.com

my name is goatlady (yes legally) I had it changed when my hubby died 14 yrs ago- :)

I'm sorry you had to deal with the Crazy Goat Lady across the road, I assure you.. we are all very similar.. in her defense I can offer she "may" have had a goat killed by dogs once and now is a bit overly cautious - I had a little goat killed (torn up mercilessly) at my front gate by 4 rotts- in MY yard so I know how one can be more defensive than usual. Most of us goat ladies live our lives around our goats and a tremendous amount of money, time and effort goes into them - which does not give anyone the right to be mean or rude, but I can sort of see how she is so crazy about dogs. I apologize for her but wanted you to know she is not alone in her weirdness - she just happens to be YOUR neighbor . :) Thank you though for the smile and well written story.

[AJ]

You sure do enjoy fighting it seems. Poor lady has to live next to you! How about you be a responsible dog owner and not allow your dog to jump the fence and she had every right to be mad about the dogs running down the street. Why should she have to worry about her animals because of another irresponsible pet owner like yourself. Sheer amazement at how you twist this story to be about how she did you wrong. Is it wrong for her chickens to be on your property? Absolutely, but with your dog shitting on hers I think its fair game for both of you. And she was pointing that out when she told you about your dog. And why is it funny that your dog shit on her property? No class!

From Shannon: Excuse me but who the hell are you? Oh wait, I just looked at the IP address so I can understand where the open hostility is coming from. So happy to see you still read the site, AJ. Anyway, my dog hasn't escaped from the yard in well over a year and a half and even before then it was only a few times that he went wandering. Her chickens on the other hand run freely 24/7 365 days a year so that they can get hit by cars and crap all over my stuff. Not to mention the roosters who occasionally like to chase my kids -on my property. Her female dogs come into heat and get off their chains and head straight to our house at least every couple of months and cause fights between my three male dogs and yet my dogs stay put in their yard. She's had goats escape and come over to my house and eat my flowers on numerous occasions, and yet I'm the bad guy. It was funny that my dog shit on her tarps because I've been dealing with this crazy family for going on five years and I was happy that my dog took a little revenge for me.

As for the dogs running down the road, they weren't a threat to anyone except the car that would likely end up hitting them. The woman doesn't own the road, plain and simple, and needed to butt out.

[Chris]

Oh my...You've been mighty generous!

[Lisa]

Crazy Goat Lady!!!!! She sounds like a nut! Thanks for the story!!!

[Jessica]

Way to go!!

[Typhne]

Whoo Hoo Shannon! Give the goat lady the southern smack down! : )

[George]

Good for you, Shannon! Stick up for yourself. This lady thinks the earth (and probably the sun!) revolves around her and her goats. I'm glad you let her know otherwise. Keep it up!

PS. Your story was a fun read...you're a good writer. :)