ANOTHER Backyard You Can Hear?!

If you look back to my prior blog titled "A Backyard You Can Hear" you learned that there are some odd things that you can find in people's backyards. Things that you can hear before you can actually see. I had another similar experience last week at a completely different clients house…

The doggies - two beautiful chocolate labs who I'll call Harley and Marley, plus a sweet little beagle named Charlie. Harley was quite the barker at first but the other two were excited to give me kisses right away. First things first, out to the backyard for a potty break!

The pups go rushing out and all is quiet…for a few minutes. As they are sniffing around I suddenly hear an odd noise. At first I couldn't quite place it..a hurt animal maybe? All three dogs go rushing to the back corner of the yard and start barking their heads off! Could that noise be..bleating?? I walk to the now crazy barking pups to calm them down. The fence is wooden (not see through) but there are a few small gaps between each piece. I can't quite see with just my eye stuck to the crack, so I whip out my phone and zoom in with the camera and grab this shot...

It's an honest to goodness GOAT! A goat..in my town..in a custom built pen in someone's backyard! I am in the suburbs, not a whole lot of big yards for farm animals. Granted I've seen my fare share of chickens, roosters and even ducks in backyards around here but I NEVER would have thought about a goat. Still makes me laugh just thinking about it!

The more the goat bleated the less the doggies paid any attention and went on to do their thing. For each visit (twice a day for three days) it was the same routine. Mr. Goat wouldn't start making noise until the dogs came out, they would bark their heads off for 5 minutes and then just ignore it. When I eventually talked to the owner of the pups, for a completely separate reason, I of course had to bring up the goat and earned myself some more laughter. When their neighbors first got the goat they built some sort of ramp that leaned up against a tree for him to climb. His head would pop over the fence and the dogs would go NUTS! Not just barking but trying to climb (aka scratch their way up) the fence to get the goat. The ramp was quickly taken down in less than a week and had a custom built enclosure put up instead.

The moral of the story: no matter where you live you never really know what you will find in backyard! A funny experience that just made my week (you know I was telling EVERYONE this story!)