How to tackle a goat: a prelude

Hey everyone, below is a story of a fun call involving goats. I know its kinda long and I probably told you the story already like 10 times but I think its worth a laugh or two at my expense. Scroll down past these video to read the story.If not check out these goat videos! Ha ha ahh goats!

How to tackle a goat

It was an exciting day. It was our first full day of appointments and we were so energized by a day of do-gooding and hand-shaking. A weight had lifted off of both Dr. Fanning shoulders (we were in business) and my own (I had a job I could depend on and was thrilled with). We had gotten a call from an elderly lady who had a very old sheep named 'Spooky' that wasn't doing well and needed to be put down. When we arrived at the ranch set amongst endless vineyards it was nearing sunset. The woman was kind and poorly concealed her deep love for the age-ed ailing sheep. Before retiring to her house while we "did the deed" she asked Dr. Fanning if we were keen on seeing goats. Dr Fanning who had raised and shown goats eagerly affirmed her goat knowledge and asked if she had goats and what they needed. "Well there are these two goats that sort of roam the back property, we don't handle them much but I like you to vaccinate them and check their teeth and hooves if you can". Sure we can. "We will come knock when were all done". Silently and professionally we euthanized Spooky, the black sheep in the pasture under neath a shade tree. As much as we dislike euthanizing the alternative for old Spooky is unnecessarily slow and painful for both ol spook and his choked-up owner.
"Ok lets see about those goats. Have you been around goats?" Dr Fanning asked.I laughed, "nope."
"That's fine we'll check them out and you can get broken in on goats then".
Sunset was upon us and we guess we had better hurry if we didn't want to do this in the dark. We entered the pen and sized up our opposition. "Holy $*%t, those are big goats man, Nubian Meat goats, probably what 200 to 250." Dr Fanning softly proclaimed as our two patients bolted to the far corner of the pen.
"Yeah", suddenly feeling like the kid who climbed up a tree without considering his height or a path downward. The pen was roughly 25 feet by 25 feet of mud and straw. Attached to the pen was a three walled covered barn-like enclosure with a 5 foot wide open door way. Plenty of room to run. At the back of the pen a now chained-up wide gate that had been opened to the back acres these goats were so accustomed to roaming. One devil goat was black and white while the other was solid brown. Once they had achieved maximum distance from us they waited. Both just stared, appearing to see right through us with the wild goat eyes, chewing mouthfuls of hay grain in unison. Your move mofo, come and get me.
"So whats the risk assessment here, do these guys bite much or kick? Or is it just the 120 inch horns I should be worried about?", I call out as I verify my shoes are tied. Double knot.
"Oh well they'll run you over, don't let them don that and you should be fine".
Don't let goat run you over...check. "So whats the game plan here: I ask while considering her possible meaning to 'should' in her last statement. Seconds later Dr. Fannning hurls her 110 pounds frame at the Brown goat. He nimbly escapes looking back in a taunting manner to suggest "is she for real?".
"Lets try and corner them and grab em by the horns and hold on."
I laugh, "Ok sure yeah, grab them by the horns of coarse".
Growing increasingly agitated by our slow yet deliberate stalking the goats began to display their impressive athletic ability. The black and white one leaped onto the side of the barn and tapped all four hooves to the wood easily clearing five or six feet."Ok, I did not know goats could do that". When pressed they would leap over the large wooden barrel in the center of the ring and each other. After several minutes of half hearted attempts and a showcase of ninja-goat-matrix flips I made a decision. These goat were going down. This was my chance to make a statement, I ain't scared of no goats. Worse case scenario I break my glasses but gain some respect. I sigh, "Ok, Let's do this". We corner the black and white one, 8 feet, 7 feet, 6 feet. My hands splay out in anticipation, knees bent. Five, four, he bolts, I stab laterally with both hands. I manage a loose grip on the horn closest to me momentarily as he charges by. The goat's momentum spins me around and I fall hard to the ground. I know that I fell hard because Dr. Fanning asked if I was ok and offered us to quit now. I would feel it tomorrow but not now. I was on a mission. By now the sun was nearly set and the elderly woman had emerged from the house to check-in. Again we corner, he bolts left, I go left, he stops on a dime and breaks right. "How do you like that, I just got juked-out of my shoes by a frickin goat. Son-of-a-B just puts the moves on me." It was a beautiful move a la Barry Sanders or Marshall Faulk. Again we corner he bolts past Dr.Fanning without so much as a finger layed. My next attempt I get two hands on two horns but again only momentarily as I
am flung solidly against the barn shoulder first. It must have looked and sounded bad.
"Maybe you guys should just quit, I don't want anyone getting hurt", the lady spectating beyond the fence cast out. I could see that by now Dr.Fanning wanted to win as much as I did. Corner,six feet,five feet,four, he bolts to my left and I launch myself left, hands out stretched. My body went horizontal like I was selling out for a fly ball. Just 3 inches from the end of each horn my hands locked as he dragged me long enough for my body face forward. I planted my feet as he wildly thrashed his head up and down. The end of his horn jabbed and dug into my thigh meat. I tightened my grip and tried to choke up. Searching for back-up, "what do I do?!"
"Just don't let go!, Try to press him up against the fence, press your knee into his chest and he'll stop" Dr.Fanning said in such a tone as to indicate she was very amused.
I followed her instructions and she took the vaccine from my scrub top pocket and promptly administered it. After a brief exam Dr.Fanning said "ok he's done". By this point the goat had stopped struggling almost as though he was saying "you've bested me good sir". Dr.Fanning swung open the gate and black and white when bounding away from the arena. One more to go. I'm not sure if it was luck or just the simple fact that the brown goat had accepted his fate having witnessed the capture of his compatriot but I was able to wrestle him down on my first attempt. It was now dark and as we proudly rode away from the ranch we both grinned ear to ear.
"That was a bad situation, those goats were crazy, don't worry that's the worse it will ever get with goats." Dr Fanning said.
I laughed, "that was awesome!". I thought to myself, that might be the best that it gets.On the short ride back to home base I made sure to accentuate my injuries to give Dr.Fanning a hard time for 'endangering' an employee. I went to bed with a smile knowing that I had earned some respect and didn't even break my glasses.

What's New?!

Hello all for those of you that occasionally check this page and have found only two new postings in 6 months I apologize. After a long hiatus I finally sat down to re-cap all of my summer festivities. Since then I have been so busy with the Holidays and work that I haven't sat down to post anything. Now that life has settled (somewhat), ((you know carolyn and I)), I intend on trying to keep up with this blog and promise to post some interesting stuff.
So whats new?
As many of you know this fall was a trying and stressful few months. I was scrambling to save up enough money to afford another quarters worth of classes at UCSB. Working at the emergency clinic downtown wasn't really working out for a variety of reasons and I was beginning to overwhelmed. After talking to friends and family I decided to put school off for another year while I worked on getting out of debt and putting some money away. Obviously the first order of business was finding a job that I could be excited about. I took a chance an sent out a resume to a job posted on craigslist for a mobile vet in the near by Santa Ynez valley. The mobile practice was a start-up in an area that is somewhat rural with lots of ranch style properties. Being that I have no horse experience and I live 30 minutes away I didn't figure I would hear back. Two weeks and an interview later I was the newest (and only) employee of Vet's Here mobile veterinary service.
As it turns out this was perfect for me. I got to be involved in starting a practice from the ground up. This was an opportunity to do work I love in a totally fresh and new way. And I get to learn equine(horse) medicine, the last major category of animal medicine I haven't done. Dr. Fanning and I roll around the Santa Ynez valley in a twenty-something foot RV style truck seeing almost anything and everything we can. Check out our website its pretty nice: http://www.vetshere.com/

More on Vets Here later....
After taking the job in the valley AND agreeing to do relief work at my old job San Roque AND finishing the emergency job I found myself working 7 days a week. From no jobs to 3 jobs! So I put my head down and worked through October, November, and December. Now as of January 12Th I am down to just one job and looking forward to getting back to a normalish schedule. Vets Here has been booking up and couldn't be more excited about my job. Oh and by the way a film crew is coming into town in February to shoot a pilot for a reality TV show based on us! Once edited producers from LA will shop the show at different networks. If we get picked-up you can look forward to seeing us on TV for a half-hour every week for season 1 of VET'S HERE! We will see where this goes but in the mean time we are having fun.

In the coming weeks I will tell you how to vaccinate a goat, what the hell is an Alpaca, and what does New York look like in January (Carolyn and I headed out the 27th). Thanks for checking in.