I met a goat today.
He came right up to me and stuck his chin out, a very trusting gesture I thought.
I offered my hand for him to sniff, and he seemed to accept that I was not food. I took that same hand and offered some scritches behind his ear. Just like Freya does, he guided my hand to the spot most in need of scritching. After a few, mutually pleasurable moments of this, he looked me in the eyes. He held the gaze, just like Freya does. It was a very tender moment, with an animal I had just met. Of the handful of goats I spent time with today, that was the only goat that made eye contact.
I wondered what to attribute that to.
Is it a behavior, an adaptation, something that increases the odds of getting food?
Or is it a personality trait, reflective of a trusting spirit? A curiosity. A sense that he was safe…
I’ve been thinking about this distinction with animals a lot lately. It’s come up with seeing the vast differences in outlook between Freya and Frodo. It also came up with the mice that we re-homed over the summer, when they thought one of the trailers was a good place to set up a little mouse village. Mouseissippi, if you will…
Ater capturing the mice in live traps, I kept them in a turtle aquarium. I made it nice with straw and water. I would put out a bit of baby food for them to enjoy. Then, when I had time, I would drive them to the plateau and release them to a new home.
I was struck by how differently they adapted to the confinement. Some did everything they could to escape, leaping at the lid over and over.
Some stayed very still, buried themselves in straw, and tried to become invisible. Others would explore their temporary home, and even look at me watching them. They seemed curious.
I think it is easy to skate past these differences within our non-human cousins. These are expressions of individuality. Every one of these beings was different. Isn’t that a kind of miracle? It is estimated that there may be 20 billion mice on planet earth. And, as best we know, each one of them is completely unique.
Which brings me back to my new goat friend.
This personality he revealed to me seems like the consequence of feeling safe. Other goats, just like him, raised in factory farms, will never have the opportunity to express their uniqueness. These operations reduce all of their victims to repetitive behaviors and hi-stress, cramped conditions. A commercial goat operation will have 1000s of goats under one roof with a handful of humans to feed and look after them. Had my friend been in that situation, the opportunity for being scritched in just the right place, meeting a human’s gaze, and resting, I mean really resting, would never have arisen.
Many animals rescued from such operations take months, or even years, before something that looks like a true spark of individual personality can arise. The personality exists in them. They just don’t trust you to see it…yet. Just as you will never know the personality of one of the guards at Buckingham Palace. When you’re on guard, you’re not sharing your full self.
It fills us with hope, and inspiration, to consider the many personalities we will get to know in our rescue work. May they all experience the safety, the trust, the kindness, to let their uniqueness shine…
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