Grace versus Goat

One of Ben's favorite things at our zoo is the petting zoo. I use the term petting zoo loosely, as it only has a small herd of goats. Regardless, it's always been a fun activity to visit their corral where you can pet them, brush them, and feed them. The goats have always been perfectly pleasant. I have proof, I swear.

See... here you go... what a sweet goat that little 8 month old Ben is petting.

And here we are again... NICE goat. And again, a year and a half later... "How are you, Mr. Calm, Relaxed Goat?"

Well, our opinion of the zoo goats has now been tainted. We were there this past weekend for a birthday party, and I took Ben and Grace into the petting zoo area. Ben took off to say hi to the goats, while I put Grace down to walk around in an uncrowded area. She took about three steps before two goats decided that they were going to spar. It happened so fast. One minute we were walking around by ourselves, the next minute Grace was plowed over by two crazed goats. I mean PLOWED. She landed face down in the gravel and slid across the ground like she was sliding into home plate. She was covered in dirt and grime.... even in her mouth, poor baby. (I'm not even going to begin to think about the yuckiness that was the dirt & gravel in the goat area.) When I got her all cleaned up, I saw that she was going to have a nice little shiner and some scrapes to go with it. She cried hard for a minute or two, but she got over it fairly quickly. We went straight from there to the party area for cake and ice cream, and that went a LONG way to smooth things over.

Here she is with her goat injuries...

We'll probably be avoiding the goat petting area (aka war zone) for a while. We'll stick to petting Army... he's the same size and color, and he can be counted on to never go faster than 1 mile per hour.