(found on google images)
I don't think I will ever get use to seeing people walk their goats/sheep. I remember the first time I saw it. I was sitting at my computer doing some work when all of a sudden this sound of bells and hooves go running by my window. I looked up and asked my husband, "What was that?"
"Oh someone is walking their goat," he said without even looking up from his computer. Like it was the most normal thing in the world.
I was like "Huh? Walking their goat? You mean like you walk a dog? On a leash?"
"Yes", my husband said.
"Why on earth do people here walk their goats?" I asked because having lived on a farm and having raised goats when I was younger, we just let our goats out in the pasture. They walked themselves. No leash required. So to say I was confused and totally dumbfounded at this point was an understatement.
"They are going to slaughter it for meat so they always take it for a stroll through the neighborhood so that it feels happy and enjoys its last few days before they slaughter it, " he said.
Not only do they walk the goat, but they put coloring on it and bells around its feet to make it pretty. After I got over the initial shock of seeing goats on leashes being taken for a walk, I find it to be the most extradordinary thing. There are so many campaigns today about animal cruelty and free range this or that, and here in a country where the people don't have electric on a regular basis, they take their goats for a walk before slaughtering them because it's the goat's right.
I am not making fun of this. I find it extradordinary, but I wish this compassion could also be shown to the people around us. I didn't really mean for this post to be a let's join hands and save the world speech. There's just so much we can learn from the most unlikeliest of places. Who knew so much could be found just from walking a goat?
Have you walked your goat today?
