“We can’t all be stars because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as I go by” –Sebastian Horsley
Rocket. You all know him. We all love him. And these facts, well, they have started to go to his head.
It didn’t take long after his arrival last spring as a bottle baby that we realized Rocket was something special and he quickly cemented a very special place in the hearts and lives of myself, Barbara and other members of the PSGR family. It also didn’t take long before Rocket himself realized he was something special.
Admittedly, I have certainly had a hand in inflating his ego. Rocket pretty much has the run of the farm. Upon seeing my car drive up and hearing my voice he makes his way to the gate and talks to me until I let him out to the main area of the farm. He often accompanies me in everything I do. Literally everything. Everywhere I go, there he is “helping”. Helping includes getting into everything, leaning on me, getting in the way of anything I try to do, chewing on my zippers and simply staring at me with those big puppy dog eyes. When I want him to go back out with the goats he acts like a toddler; he doesn’t listen, he looks at me like I’m crazy and goes back to whatever it is he wants to be doing. When he is amongst the other goats it’s near impossible to pay attention to or brush any other goat, the minute Rocket sees it, he will wedge himself in the middle and there he stays.
When this year’s new bottle babies started arriving at the rescue he was less than thrilled. He goes around to all the baby feeders and eats their hay from the other side of the fence, just because it’s theirs. If I’m sitting holding a baby and he is the same area, he will often come up and try and bite the baby and shoo any babies near me away. If I’m in a baby pasture he lays at the fence and stares me down. He has had to learn to share the spotlight which is not a lesson he has been happy to learn.
Yes, he was on local TV weekly during the NFL season wearing his Kam Chancellor jersey supporting the Seahawks and he won a local Santa’s Favorite Pet contest by a landslide. Most people who visit the farm know who he is without having ever met him and almost every family that has come to adopt goats would have chosen him in a heartbeat if he didn’t already have a permanent home with us. But these things aren’t what make Rocket a star. What makes him a star is he’s just simply Rocket. When you meet him you just get it. He’s pretty special.
Yesterday while the main herd was out grazing I sat down in the pasture to spend a few minutes with Harmony, a sweet mini Lamancha doe and within 10 seconds guess who was there pawing at me? So there Rocket and I sat, he leaned on me and chewed his cud. Best friends watching the herd enjoying a break from the rain. Yes, his diva like behavior drives us crazy sometimes but hey, someone has to be the star.