For years now I’ve had them in my herd, secret agents, my spy goats. You know, the goats that silently glide through the herd, hiding from your all knowing attention. They keep their eyes on you, never an out right bug eyed stare that causes you to notice them, but a sly eye to see if you have noticed them.

Their goal is to be invisible, yet be there if any goodies are given out, like grain, delicious trees cut down, wonderful hay, protein blocks. But, they don’t want to be noticed enjoying any of the bounty you provide for the other goats, because, after all, they are invisible, flying low under the radar.

Their goal in life is for you to never notice them, never get wormed, never get a CD/T shot, never have feet trimmed, never be touched by a human, and they could easily train all of our FBI, CIA, undercover agents on how to blend. I’ve said before that these human agents need to work on a goat farm for a while and be trained by the best, the secret agent goat. The trick will be for the human agent to notice them so they can learn.

These secret agent spy goats know how to blend into their environment. They know to go and hide behind another goat, tree, fence post, door, barn, anything that they can peek around to see where you are at. Crafty is an excellent word for that spy goat. I had one kid that was a natural. As soon as I appeared in the area, she would make sure she kept another goat between me and her and she would shadow this other goat, knowing to change sides, so she was always well hidden.

There was this one problem though. She wasn’t as brilliant as she thought. Sometimes she would hide behind another goat that was shorter than she was. She would have to drop her head to peek over the short goat’s back to see where I was, but a lot of her own back was in full view. Needless to say, she got all of her wormings and shots on schedule. Wait long enough and she would eventually pick a goat shorter than herself to hide behind and there you had her.

Sometimes the natural spy goat would pick the wrong group to hide in. They would dive into the middle of a group and stay put in the middle, invisible. But, they needed to be careful of the group they picked to hide in. Each year we catch a couple of spy goats because they chose to hide in our ex-bottle baby group. As soon as I step in the pen, these ex-bottle girls, who think I am wonderful, would charge me in a tight group with the spy goat trapped in the middle, unable to break free, and I had her in minutes for her worming.

When I had my knee replacement and was not allowed into the big herd for four months, the herd was quite surprised to see me one day on my cane, coming for a visit. I stood there and the friendly girls surrounded me, begging me for a petting. I am use to the girls grabbing bits of my clothing and tugging to get attention, but one was persistently jerking on my shirt from behind. I looked around and there stood my one of my best spy goats, Cricket, pulling on my shirt for all she was worth. This is a girl that once disappeared so well that she missed her CD/T shot, wormings, delousing, checking feet, for well over 8 months, staying slick and healthy to not draw attention to herself. My records told on her lack of attention, this sly ol’ full blood Boer doe, and we finally laid a trap good enough to catch her and give her the works, because who knew when we would be able to find her and catch her again?

But, there Cricket stood, fiercely tugging on the back of my shirt, the spy goat who hated all humans. She allowed me to pet her twice on the head and then she hurried off, in case I started getting ideas. I suppose the silly ol’ thing missed the competition of the game in hiding, and was glad to see I was up and about. Or, maybe she liked the thought of tugging on Superman’s cape and escaping.

You say what’s the difference in a spy goat or a truly wild goat. There’s different levels of wild goats. There are wild ones that go truly bonkers if you get within an acre of them and they take off to the next county. The other wild ones, who if trapped in the barn or pen, jump straight up the wall and walk the rafters of the barn and climb an impossibly tall fence to get away, when you aren’t even interested in them. These are all noticeable things. The spy goat is never noticed.

She never acts like a bug eyed deer caught in your high beams, she never hysterically walks the wall or jumps fences before she’s even seen, she never plows through goats before it is necessary. The spy goat is as cool as a cucumber as she plans her next move and executes it. She’s always scheming, always planning, always knows where you are at. The ultimate sneak.

The other day, one of the spy goats walked within two foot of me, quietly ghosting along with another group of goats. What made me notice her was she slightly tilted her head to the side to look up and me to see if I had noticed her. I pretended I didn’t see her and she went off quite pleased with herself. That’s another thing, let them keep getting bolder and bolder, thinking they are so good you never see them, then nail them as they attempt stealth mode even closer to you.

Ah, yes, human agents could learn from the craftiness of these spy goats. They could also learn what their downfall could be, too. Yes, to be a super operative, they really need to study from the best on a goat farm.