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Christmas is less than a month away, so it’s time to put up your Christmas straw goat. That’s what the town of Gävle, Sweden has done every year since 1966, although residents support the practice for different reasons:
Half of the people take pride in the giant animal, while the other half take equal pride in attempting to burn it down. To date, the goat has been burnt down more times than it has survived the Christmas period.
Large sums of money apparently change hands, as people bet on whether it will survive, or how long it lasts before being burnt down and previous attempts to sabotage it have even included the bribing of security guards
Link -via The Agitator | Photo: Wikimedia Commons
I love goats, but I don’t know that I would ever consider any of them to be “beautiful.” Even if I was, I certainly don’t think Wasieef here would be my first pick. As it turns out though, she is the winner of the Most Beautiful Goat contest in Jordan. You can read more about it at the link.
We told you the story of Tama, the cat who became stationmaster at a train station in Japan (one, two, three, four, five times). Her success at bringing in new customers has spawned a series of non-human stationmasters, including dogs, monkeys (previously), goats, rabbits, a penguin, a tortoise, and even lobsters! Shown is Wasao, stationmaster at Ajigasawa.
Japan has at least two stationmaster dogs, with the latest being a shaggy off-white Akita named Wasao. Already somewhat of an animal celebrity in Japan for his “busa-kawa” (ugly-cute) characteristics, Wasao was the ideal choice to be Tourism Stationmaster of Ajigasawa station in far-northern Aomori prefecture. Get that? TOURISM Stationmaster… they aren’t big on subtlety up in Aomori.
Read about all of them at WebEcoist. Link -via Fark
What is it about interspecies animal friendships that make humans so infatuated? Is it the unlikelihood of the partnerships or the simple cuteness of two different species reflecting so well upon one another? Whatever it is, these adorable animal pairings are simply precious no matter how you look at it.
Perhaps one of the most famous strange animal friendships involves Greg Pike’s three companions, Booger, Kitty and Mousie, who constantly ride on top of one another. His animals were named by a group of school children who Greg gave the opportunity to name.
Pike is a busker who receives monetary compensation from passersby who wish to photograph his bizarre animal trio. He currently resides in San Francisco, but he and his pets previously lived in a small border town in Colorado, Arizona, in Santa Fe, New Mexico and in Santa Barbara, so if you think you may have seen him in person and you happened to be in one of those places, then you almost certainly saw the real act, not an impersonator.
Greg likes to think of them as a symbol of peace, if these three national enemies can get along, why can’t we humans. If you like the act, you can always make a donation via his website.
When Stuart and Caroline Ward bought an owl named Boobah right before her German shepherd, Hazel, gave birth to puppies, they worried the dog would be overprotective of the litter and act aggressive towards the owl. Fortunately, the exact opposite was true. Hazel immediately started to look after her owl friend who took to riding on the dog’s back for rides. The pair soon became inseparable and Boobah even tried to suckle milk from Hazel like the young puppies did.
Many people have seen this image without ever seeing the equally sweet story. The 12 week-old macaque was brought to an animal sanctuary after he was discovered close to death after being abandoned by his mother. After his rescue, his health improved, but he remained listless until he struck up a friendship with an unlikely suspect –a white pigeon. The two were so close keepers almost never found them more than a few feet from one another’s side. The friendship managed to bring the monkey back from the brink and he displayed a whole new attitude.
While some consider cats and dogs to be mortal enemies, it is still fairly common to see the two animals become close friends after living together. As common as cat and dog friendships are, it takes a special bond to capture the interest of a nation, but Cashew and Libby were that close.
Cashew was an older yellow lab that had gone blind and deaf in her old age, but his feline friend, Libby, didn’t let that stand in the way of their friendship. Libby served as a seeing-eye cat for her elderly friend, leading him to his food and watching over him while the pair slept next to each other. The cat would even follow her friend on walks to make sure he got back safely.
After Cashew passed, Libby has shown no interest in other dogs and has been known to hang around at her friend’s favorite nap spots. The cat’s utter loyalty to her friend earner her the Cat of the Year from the ASPCA, a high honor with so many great kitties in the country.
While the header for this one has the makings of a great animal sitcom, it’s actually a true story that warms your heart. It al started when a stray goat and dog were picked up by animal control outside of a wedding chapel in Dallas. They were brought to the East Lake Pet Orphanage, where volunteers soon saw the pair was inseparable. Unfortunately, Texas law requires that abandoned pets must be kept with animals of the same species, so a sheriff’s deputy took away the goat, named Minnelli. If the goat stayed unclaimed, she would have been sold at a livestock auction.
Fortunately, the story already hit the papers and the Dallas County Commissioner assured the public Minnelli would not end up on someone’s dinner table. A few days later, the animal’s owner came forward. The family also owned a three-legged yellow lab and could no longer afford to take care of their animals, so they signed over the rights to all three pets to the East Lake Pet Orphanage.
The shelter received hundreds of adoption requests for the unlikely trio, which they then narrowed down to the five best applicants. Representatives from the shelter visited each home to ensure the pets were given to the best possible candidates. Eventually, they were adopted by Norman and Sandra Williams who owned three acres of land and plenty of other critters to keep their new family members company.
Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like bouncing baby goats! -via Arbroath
In Korawan, a remote area of India, there’s a bank that allows people to deposit goats as savings, or borrow goats on credit. Local coordinator Subedar Singh explained how it works:
“Wives of these people help them in crushing stones and breed two-three goats for additional income,” Singh said.
“Though the area is best suited for goat breeding, no effort was made to establish it as a full fledged business activity,” he said.
“We provide goats to women having interest in taking up breeding as a full-time activity as loan. When a goat gives birth to kids, generally two to three in numbers, one of them is deposited with the bank again,” Prema explained.
Goats in the bank are medically examined every week.
“In case a goat dies, then it is either replaced from the market or from the bank depending upon the availability,” Prema said.
Link via J-Walk Blog | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user Pete Markham used under Creative Commons license
Two goats were stranded for two days when they wandered onto the supports beneath a 60-foot-high train bridge connecting the Signal Peak coal mine to Broadview, Montana. Sandy Church of the Rimrock Humane Society answered the call to rescue the goats.
“We have absolutely no idea how or why these little critters would go out on this bridge,” Church said. “The only thing we can figure is it happened at night and they were unsure of their surroundings. Once morning came, they were too scared to walk back where they came from.”
Church called associates and brainstormed how to get the animals down. Freeman kept watch over the animals, while the deputy handled traffic.
Byron Kinn, surface superintendent for Signal Peak Energy, came to the bridge, checked out the situation and said the mine had equipment that could reach the animals. Mine boss John DeMichiei signed off on the plan and the goats were rescued by about 1 p.m., Church said.
Link -via J-Walk Blog
The Rimrock Humane Society posted a video of the rescue. Link
The pygmy goat is just about the coolest goat in the world. Friendly, engaging and, well, small – they jump and jump and – you get the picture. In fact they are pretty much the Itchy and Scracthy of the jumping world – if you see what I mean.
Unlike their cousin the standard goat, pygmies are kept simply for the fun of having them around and of course, the goat gets to have a lot of fun at the same time. They are not what is known as a utility animal in as much as they are never kept for their milk. Really, how much milk are you going to get out of one of these mini goats anyway? As for their meat – no way! This is the goat that is kept purely as a pet.
From the Upcoming 
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This cute kid pygmy goat is just one of many precious little pygmy animals in the collection of tiny animal videos. Also portrayed are little rabbits, seahorses, hippos and possums.
Link Via BoingBoing
