In March, 2008, I read an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper about a pony that needed to be adopted from the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter. Upon visiting the shelter, we met the pony named Spencer (renamed Shasta) and a male pygmy goat named Flippy (renamed Zipper). Returning a week later, another pygmy goat had just arrived, and her name was Theodora. We adopted all three to keep them together.
At the animal shelter, I noticed that the male goat had befriended the pony. His tongue stuck out, and he was very leery of people. You could not approach him or even get close to pet him. He was a rescue who had been attacked by dogs. He was tied up but the owner did nothing to help him. When animal services rescued him, they took him to surgery where his face and mouth were reconstructed. Unfortunately, his tongue was left hanging out of his mouth, and he was named Flippy. We renamed him Zipper.
At Love Creek Farm, Zipper, Theodora, and Shasta settled into their new home. They had grass to eat and places to sunbathe in a stress free environment. Zipper’s scared behavior slowly improved, but a person was never able to touch him. We respected his boundaries.
A year later, we brought baby Yoda Bear to the farm. It took a few months before Zipper felt comfortable bonding with him. Within six months, Yoda was big enough to head-butt and play with Zipper.
In February 2011, dogs attacked the goats, killing Zipper and Theodora. It was a sad day on the farm when this happened. We did not recover for a long time with the sadness that happened. We worked diligently to bury fencing and install underground wiring for outdoor flood lights and motion sensor lights to make it safe for all the animals.
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