Meet Kellen Brown

Starting sometime in March, our Lucy-girl was becoming more of a nuisance to the neighbors. One of our neighbors had learned his lesson and made sure to leave most of his garbage contained. Lucy still manages to find all of his stray trash and whatever else, and brings it up to litter our yard. Trash is one thing, but torn-up mail packages is quite another. On two different days we found packages belonging to another neighbor strewn all over the field. Ultimately, it was our lazy mail-lady's fault, but we still knew we needed to do something about Lucy.

We decided to keep Lucy locked up and continue with more intensive training. About a week after we started, during some training, Lucy ran off and didn't come back. I was by myself that day, and I sent a text to Adam saying she had been gone for 1.5 hours....too long. It's pretty easy to lose a pet in the sticks, and can be pretty scary too. Adam came home a few hours later and hiked through the woods on a search to find her...no luck. Early the next morning she arrived...sometime around 6:30. She was absolutely filthy, stinky, exhausted, and traumatized. We were VERY happy to see her.

She smelled like fish, and I was afraid that she might have gotten salmon poisoning sometime during her all-night adventure. So, I called the vet and was able to get some antibiotics without having to take her in. A dog down the road had gotten it only a few weeks prior to that, so we were vigilant. The vet said to wait until she got feverish before giving the antibiotics so that she would have a better chance of being immune. We waited, and fortunately she didn't get sick. However, she was still acting very strange...leery, scared...not the playful puppy we were used to. Her one-year birthday was fast approaching and we had put of getting her spayed because of time and schedule. It finally dawned on me that she was likely in heat...and lo and behold, she was. That explained a lot of her strange behavior. We got her spayed about 2 weeks after she ran off.

Slowly but surely, Lucy regained her spunk. During her 2-week post-op lock up we decided to bite the bullet and find her a friend. Adam and I had been talking about it off and on. We thought about getting another dog, or a goat, or a sheep...something to keep her occupied on those rainy days when her "sheep" are at school or inside playing. Adam found a pygmy goat on Craigslist for $25 and picked it up the next evening. I had something else going on that night, so I didn't get to go with him and the kids. I came home late that night after the kids had gone to bed. Adam took me down to the field where I could meet him. He told me that Synnove had named him "Kellen." I guess Adam had asked her where she came up with that name and she said "I don't know..." So, we have a friendly and playful horned pygmy named Kellen.

Kellen spends his days on a very generous tether in the field eating grass and pesky blackberry bushes.

Lucy and Kellen still have sort of a love-hate relationship. We started slowly introducing them with supervised leashed visits. Now that we've had Kellen for almost a month, We've allowed Lucy to run free a few times. Unfortunately, she is back to her old antics and leaving the property for extended periods. We're gonna try to put Kellen in the kennel with her more and more so that they can form a better bond. We'll see. Kellen's horns are a source of concern, as Lucy can be QUITE playful. So far she's been able to dodge his head-nudges. If it doesn't work out, we're only out $25...which is already money well spent because the blackberry bushes are slowly being gobbled up! LOVE that!