I have two fun announcements. I wasn’t sure which I should start with so I tossed a coin, and here’s what I’ll share with you first.
The second episode of my new podcast, Equiosity, has just been published. In case you haven’t heard, this podcast is my latest project. I have teamed up with Dominique Day, one of the co-founders of Cavalia, to create the Equiosity podcast.
We taped the first four episodes last August. They were part of one long conversation that we split into four episodes. I was in the midst of writing the Goat Diaries, so naturally that was what I was thinking about. So these first episodes of a podcast that is about horses start out with goats.
That’s not all we talked about. These first two episodes cover a lot of ground. The overall theme of Episode 2 is emotional balance. How can we have the enthusiasm we love coupled with the calmness we need for optimal learning?
You can learn more about the podcasts and listen to the first two episodes at Equiosity.com
The second piece of exciting news is our goat herd has expanded. Yesterday Thanzi gave birth to twins. If they were horses, I would say she has a colt and a filly. Baby goats don’t seem to have names that indicate gender. They are just referred to as kids. So I will say she had a boy and a girl, both black, but thankfully the little girl has a spot of white on her forehead. She will be easy to tell apart from her brother and Trixie’s black triplets.
They came during the day which is good, but at an awkward time for me. Yesterday afternoon I had an appointment with my tax accountant. When I checked on Thanzi before leaving for a few hours, she was just starting into labor. What to do! At this time of year you don’t cancel tax appointments. But I couldn’t leave Thanzi. So my tax accountant, who doesn’t even know about the goats, got what has to be for him a unique excuse for canceling an appointment. At least it’s better than my dog ate my homework.
Thanzi did great. I got to watch her twins being born, and thankfully I didn’t have to help out. That’s exactly what you want. I helped dry them off just so they would get to know me, and then I stepped back and let Thanzi bond with her babies.
After barn chores were done, I spent the evening with Trixie’s three curled up in my lap. Thanzi’s newborns were sleeping within reach so I could stroke them as I welcomed them to the world. We are in for a lot of laughter at the Clicker Center this spring! Come join us!
Thanzi is drying off her first-born twin.
No, Thanzi didn’t have triplets. This is one of Trixie’s babies come to meet the new arrivals.
You will need a password to watch this video. Since it shows Thanzi giving birth, the password is Thanzi.
The Clicker Center Blog 
How delightful! I have also just listened to your second podcast. Thank you so much. It is such a joy to hear you both discussing the importance of emtional control. I have one pony who is very over enthusiatic learner, and I have to completely change my approach and strategies in order to keep her calm. She rather reminds me if a goat, super quick at learning, always busy! In fact, though her name when gifted to me was Beauty, I have changed it to Bizzy Bea.
( for your information I did try to post a comment on the soundclloud site, but it did not seem to be working very well)
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Hi Alison,
Thanks for your comment. Emotional balance is definitely critical to good training. The super quick, eager learners keep us on our toes. The challenge is staying a step or two ahead of them.
Thanks also for letting us know about the problem with soundcloud. We’ll check that out.
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Wow. Ladies rule. –Anita
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Cute! Spent the past week reading the goat diaries and have really enjoyed them! In case you’re wondering, boy and girl kid goats are called “bucklings” and “doelings” in the goat world. 😉
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Thanks for the comment. It’s interesting. When I did a quick search via the internet, what came up was all goats under the age of six months are called kids. Between six months and a year, males are bucklings and females are doelings. If this is indeed accurate, it reflects an interesting language difference for how we think about horses versus goats.
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Everyone I know who raises goats calls them bucklings and doelings or “buck kids” and “doe kids” from the time they’re born. I’m not sure if either one is “correct” so much as we have to have a way to differentiate. 😉
This is my blog: http://www.goatorama.com. We raise pack and dairy goats and I’ve trained many of them to do tricks. Two of them are currently trained to pull, both as a team and single. I’ve only done a little clicker training in the past but after reading your Goat Diaries I’m inspired to use it more to expand our training repertoire. I started my goat Sputnik on targeting two days ago and he’s already in the beginning stages of learning how to fetch. So fun!
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It makes sense that there would be some way of referring to them. It still is easier for me to think in horse language. I keep wanting to say the does were foaling!
Fetching is definitely on the to do list for my little herd. Fetching opens up a wonderful class of tricks. You can use it to teach the goats to open mail boxes (hmm, given the goats enthusiasm for expanding upon everything we teach them, we may want to think about that one!) But they can play toy pianos, dunk basketballs, even paint. It’s all such fun. And that’s just for starters. It’s enrichment for the goats and laughter for you. Have fun!
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Be careful about mailboxes. The typical goat thinks mail is a delicious treat! We’ve had several that particularly love to chow down on newspapers. In fact, two summers ago one of our goats caught himself on fire because he snatched newspaper out of the campfire ring just as my husband lit it. He took off across the yard with it and his face got pretty singed before he thought to drop it. We’re careful to scan the area for goats before lighting campfires now!
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Goats! They are fast learners. And they are good about reminding us always to ask what it the future of this behavior?
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