How Goats Spend a 4th

      For the record, the 4th of July is not a goat's favorite holiday...Matter of fact, it may be their LEAST favorite day of the year. If you thought dogs hated fireworks, try living with goats...
     At least once a week I'm asked if I've ever owned or wanted to own fainting goats. The answer is: No. And no.
     For those unfamiliar, there is a breed that literally collapses when it hears a loud noise. Take banging pans or honking horns, and they spontaneously drop, looking to the naked eye as if they've just suffered a heart attack.
     Entertaining, perhaps (depending on who you ask), but while I've been offered (for free no less) any number of these goats from time to time, my standard response (which I adhere to still ) is "I never want to look out into my yard to see something dead..." (even if it's just pretending). The shock to my own system would be worse than the shock the little critter endured. (They say it doesn't hurt, but falling alone has to come with some risk if you ask me. Plus, fainting goats don't faint. They are conscious throughout the feigned ordeal...totally aware they couldn't run if they wanted to, which to my way of thinking, would be scary unto itself.)  Even a second or two of playing possum would make my heart skip a beat... (And you know everybody who ever came to visit would just HAVE to test it, after all, that's the kind of friends I have~ And as much as I live to host a happy party,  I don't think I'd enjoy it. On the other hand, I wonder if anyone's ever structured a monastic sanctuary for goats like these...They could live out their years in total silence, a la Thomas Merton...Hmmm. Maybe I'll reconsider...)
     For the record, all goats have keen, keen hearing. Fainting goats just do it one better and collapse, owing to  a condition known as Myotonia Congenita, caused by a mutant gene that makes their hearing hyper sensitive and their muscles spasmodically responsive to loud sounds.
     But it doesn't take a recessive gene to let you know goats hate noise, reminders for which I got last night before bidding my holiday evening goodnight. When going out for one final feeding, there was not a single goat in sight. No greetings. No bleatings. They had all holed up strategically positioned in family units behind the door of a darkened shed, encouraging each other and avoiding at all costs, the friendly neighborhood fireworks that they could not quite get their little goat minds around.
     Happy to report everyone lived to see dawn's early light, and no one was worse for the wear of a missed evening meal...(Not like anyone around here suffers from that malady.) But as for goats and holidays...give 'em Christmas. Give 'em Thanksgiving...Just don't give 'em fireworks!