Goats in the Barn

Last night, admittedly tipsy, G & I came home from Tuscany's to surprise a couple of goats in the barn.  

Poor Harry, he'd never been in a thunderstorm or seen umbrellas pop open.  Now he'll think that is just a precedent to even scarier stuff.  We walked the dogs in the pouring rain just to the barn to let the horses in.  

G walked into Teddy's stall, "Oh my god, what is this..." 

A large black animal streaked from barn light into the darkness.  The dogs went after it.  A smaller black thing ran to G bleating.  

"They're goats!  Stop the dogs!"

I grabbed for them, missed, and chased them around the barn.  They raced back in, hot on the trail of the larger goat.  G jumped on two dogs, falling to the ground with them.  He stuck them in the tack room, then while I was outside calling, he got Woody in there too.  Poor Harry was skittering here and there, afraid to be caught and unnerved by the commotion.  He'd never seen a goat either.  Eddie kept his tail up and dashed around, terrier alert and ready for action.

G tried to get the goats to come back, but they'd taken off into the pasture.  The horses were a galloping mental mess, so he couldn't get them into the stalls (since Hayley was working at Mimi's and would get home late).  So we gave up, and I let the dogs out of the tack room.  Toby took off into the pasture.  We tried to call him back, having seen what the pack could do to fawns a couple of times.  He was gone though.  Then we heard coyotes start up their yipping down there.  

I brought the dogs inside, where Harry immediately sought refuge on the couch, and Woody climbed onto the green chair.  After dragging their wet, miserable bodies off, I covered them with blankets and hugged them on the floor.  They were so upset!  Eddie and Ellie plopped down beside us.  

Then the lights went on on the deck.  A pistol fired.  

"Toby!  Come!"  G was trying to scare off the coyotes.  

G eventually got soaked getting the horses back in, which was a challenge I guess.  All the dogs were upset that he was upset with them, and they slunk downstairs to pile on the people beds, preferably on top of the people.  Toby put his head between my shoulder blades.  Harry kept his head up, looking into the mirror for 10 minutes, before finally nodding off and letting it fall on the covers. 

I really thought it was the bear in there, at first.  Wonder what happened to the goats?