Dumb and Dumber

I want to preface what I'm about to say by stating that I really do care about my goats. I find them to be an unlimited source of entertainment. I mean, really, who needs a TV when you've got quality entertainment of this caliber? Comedy? Drama? Suspense? Thriller? Sci-fi? You bet! And in any conceivable combination you can imagine.

Now that you understand where my heart is, I must tell you: goats are remarkably stupid. Now, I never expected they were going to be winning the Albert Einstein Award, but my dog understands rudimentary physics. When I turn her empty bowl upside down and nothing falls out, she understands that the bowl is empty and appropriately slumps into a pathetically dejected heap of offended disappointment and sadness.

I don't know what specific part of the brain is responsible for holding this sort of information, but goats evidently do not have it. Holding the empty feed bucket upside down to demonstrate its vacancy is perceived as an invite for multiple goats to simultaneously rush the bucket and emphatically wedge their heads into it.

On more than one occasion they've managed to knock it out of my hand, which dropped the handle and trapped somebody's head. A dog with its head trapped will typically walk backward in an attempt to withdraw its head. A goat immediately screams into the bucket, which is, of course, amplified by the bucket's acoustics. This creates more fear, sending the goat into flight mode. But since it cannot see, it is disoriented and acts as if each part of its body wants to flee in a separate direction, magnetically attracted to any and all stationary objects.

As the person responsible for this chaos, it's difficult not to want to rush in and fix the situation. However, really all you can do is laugh uncontrollably as the poor thing pinballs back and forth, bouncing off of trees and fences, screaming bloody murder until they're exhausted enough for you to safely approach them and remove the bucket.

Maybe they'll get the Darwin Award.