The Things We Take for Granted

             So I’m sitting in a goat pen. It’s just pressin’ dark.

            The pups have all eaten. They’re now just playin’…

            The goats are done too…So they’re followin’ the lead…(Goat play, being different from puppy play, but suffice it to say “Everyone’s laid back and playing”...)

          

            Big dogs (Rosey and TJ) fall into a rough'n tumble…The smaller ones, roll around where they can… All Pyrs, large and small, send their playful signals to goats they are here to protect, the message coming back from the  pygmy goats being (to my interpretation anyway) HELLO?? You DO know you ARE our ONLY security system, right? Answer from the Pyr fleet: (2 big ones; 3 little ones,) "Yep. We know. Love ya/Mean it/We got this”…

             Fast forward a full 5 minutes (coulda been 10…In country time, time gets confused). In  a sound that stops us all in our tracks 'round these parts, we ALL hear the cry of a pack of coyotes howling (once again…pups included)... Major familiar sound for this neck of the woods and a threat to innocent game everywhere (if not little white puppies somewhere in the cusp of learning how to protect). Thank God, Rosey’s babies are(being) trained…Honestly... Rosey’s babies might even be big enough to attack by now (that's how fast they grow). My thinking: They got this…(Then again,  I’d just as soon not test this…)

            In another one of those “now” moments for which I live …I find myself cuddled in a sea of pups and goats and, yes, howling sounds (are you doing the karmic math here? That’s 2 positive to 1 negative in the grand emotional circle of life scheme, right?)

            About this time, one of my sweetest, most friendly goat mama walks straight my way…She too, heard the cry. She too, made eye contact with me first, then, one by one, with each white dog in the lot (puppies included).

            I petted said goat (her name is “Cupid”…Mother of “Stoli”…Both goats have names; both goats-have no fear, which, to me, is a good thing)…Cupid nudges up to me…Nods her head downward (in “you are my friend” fashion) … And it occurs to me why wildlife handlers tell us to never tough wild game (Not that Cupid is wild game…Cause let’s face it. She’s a goat and she has a name….But she is representative of things that gave up their natural protections and turned to us humans.)

           Cupid stepped up because she has no other defense mechanism but to trust…(Heck. I should be taking lessons from her about now.) She's there because she’s overcome fear and opted for love (of the woman who feeds her, and was there for her more painful moments --namely birth).  All of this in the instant of coyote babies squalling in the background, and Rosey with newborns just learning to listen, in the fore...Cupid looks to me as if to say "We trust you. I trust you."

            Bottom line: these are the moments we take for granted…

            Goats trusting humans….Dogs trusting humans who revert to natural instincts and protect goats who trust humans. All while coyotes wired to kill things like goats and pups, and smelling as a feast before them…Back off, scared of little puppies in the their growth spurt, who will forever be unconditionally loving,  all while being wired to protect in their own right…

            Figuring out who’s on first and who’ll be more loyal to whom is no longer my goal anymore. Anymore I just pray all is peaceful for the critters I love (including my self in there somewhere) and that God grants me patience as the play of life unfolds…in my own backyard.

           I now know why Old MacDonald had a farm.

           (I also know why he yodeled "EeYiEeYiOh"...He was probably scaring off coyotes.)