With the bulk of the studies now behind me, I have been able to return to the more practical aspect of training. It is somewhat humbling to see how my timing and once 'clear' cues have deteriorated. There's nothing that can snap me back into shape like the expression on a goat's face, when he clearly doesn't have a clue as to what I want. Perhaps it's the natural 'yellow' of a goat's eyes, or the horizontal, rectangular shape of their pupils as they focus upwards in my direction, but whatever it is, they have mastered the gaze of intimidation.
I became so intrigued by their expressions, that I started to do a little reading. A fellow blogger named 'guernyjourney@blogspot' posted the photos below, which substantiate the fact that a goat's eyeballs can rotate within the eye socket. Note that position he marked on the slope of the nose remains the same in both photos, while the angle of the pupil changes. All this -the rectangular pupils and the rotating eyeballs -so that the goat can better see my cues and ignore them!
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| oh yeah?? |
Below is a photo of my trainer, posing nicely at his home -our local 4H-Club.
Benjamin is 100% goat, and he seems to enjoy his elevated status. If he chooses not to do a behavior I've asked him to do, which results in no slice of apple, he has learned that that he can slightly lower his head in my direction, and I will quickly jump out of harm's way. This seems to please him greatly. I know this because he wiggles his tail, while he emits a strange little sound that, without a doubt, is a goat-giggle.
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| Not Benjamin, but a prime example of a 'goat-giggle' |
He really should be more grateful. As of 3 weeks ago, he was scheduled to be euthanized. The reason? -he tends to be aggressive to the guests who visit the goat house. The Club chose to neuter him, thinking this would resolve the problem, but it only served to make him unattractive to any other farm who might be willing to take on his case. I championed his cause -stating that he is a very talented goat; albeit somewhat stubborn, who's now in the process of learning all sorts of wonderful cues and engaging behaviors; certainly a clever goat. The end result is that I now am in charge of correcting his aggressive charges at 5-year-olds. sigh.
Lessons learned:
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| A clever goat, indeed! |
Never turn your back on something with horns this size!
Welcome to the world of goat humor. And finicky tastes. And their lightning-quick ability to figure out exactly what you're after, come up with their own plan, create chaos, and then go back to training. BTW, do they not debud baby goats there? I'm not sure I'd want a goat with horns like that in a petting zoo. At this point, he's stuck with those horns. Makes your job all that harder. If I were you, the first thing I'd teach is a "back up!"
ReplyDeleteBoy humor is right! -and yes, the horns are like trying to work around a a cactus! He's got "back-up" in his list of behaviors -it's my default cue for him when the horns get too close. Right now, I'm trying to work on 'look-away' in a frantic attempt to keep both his horns and his hungry little mouth out of my space. He's sort of got it, but the head movement right now resembles a bobble-head doll, or a politician who doesn't quite know what to say. For a while, he also had decided to do a complete 360 in the middle of his figure 8! It's too fun!
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