The day before Christmas Eve in 2006, Jacqui took a call from the police in St Athan. A member of the public desperately needed help because she had just found a goat trussed up and left under a tree! Both she and the police were very concerned that someone was coming back to collect him and cook him for Christmas dinner (goat meat is surprisingly popular).
Kay was at work (she is a midwife) so Jacqui called her brother and he came over to help. As you might have guessed, SHUA aren't usually equipped for stabling goats! Jacqui and her brother turned one of our indoor storage areas into a make-shift stable, with the kind donation of a couple of bales of hay and straw from contacts at Ballas Farm. They fashioned a feeder out of netting and set it up ready for use.
When they arrived in St Athan, the lady had the goat in her kitchen - originally she had tethered him in her garden but he had quickly chomped through the rope! They got the goat into the back of the landrover but by the time they got back to Sully, he was sitting quite happily on the front seat!
They named the little goat Joseph. Well - it was close enough to Christmas Eve and he was looking for a stable for the night!
Jacqui had grown up with pet goats, ponies, rabbits and the like - she and her brothers would bring various animals they had found home with them and their kindly parents would help care for them. So Jacqui knew what they were getting into ... poor Kay had no such experience and that's where the fun started! On Christmas morning, Jacqui tried to teach Kay how to walk a goat on a lead ... but Joseph was the one in control, pulling poor Kay this way and that. She was all dressed up ready to go to Christmas dinner with her family and she ended up on the ground having been pulled off balance by Joseph! The girls were in tears with laughter.
Jacqui, too, had a Christmas dinner to go to - with her Mum. She thought it would fun to bring Joseph along and oh boy, was she right! Joseph had a riot in her Mum's bungalow - but luckily there was no real damage done and both Jacqui and her Mum saw the funny side. Back at SHUA, Jacqui's Mum insisted that Joseph be allowed to spend the whole evening in the lounge with them and promptly fussed and doted on Joseph all evening, much to his delight.
Joseph was a tornado from day one but he found his niche at SHUA. He befriended Lucy and Luca (our dogs) and we swear that he ended up actually thinking that he was a dog! Lucy and Luca loved Joseph and all three of them would sleep curled up together in Joseph's stable. Lucy and Luca even wanted to eat dinner with their new little friend and took to munching carrots and sprouts with Joseph. Obviously much tastier than bones!
Joseph LOVED to do gardening ... by which we mean that he loved eating anything in the garden, whether grass or shrubs or flowers - you name it, he'd have a try. What was frustrating was that he would never finish anything; he just wanted a mouthful or two of everything! Poor Kay - all of her hard work tending the garden pretty much wasted. It should have been quite upsetting but luckily she could see the funny side. It was very hard to be mad at Joseph - he was just so adorable!
We later learnt that a pigmy goat fitting Joseph's description had been found in Liddles' car park a few weeks before Christmas and it was seen being bundled into the back of a red van. Reports were made to the Vale police about a can acting strangely near Cardiff airport and something the size of a pigmy goat being thrown over a hedge into a field. This latter was a week before we were called out to fetch Joseph in St Athan. And many months later, Jacqui and Kay spent several hours chasing a pair of pigmy goats found running around in Dinas Powys - could these have been Joseph's original companions? We'll never know.
Tragically, after a brief illness, Joseph died in February 2007. He may only have been with us for a short time but he is sadly missed. Joseph made us all laugh so hard with his antics and he had all of our hearts. He was definitely a truly special little goat.
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