Monday 5 September 2011

Leadership in Question

With the electric fence partly commissioned and the goats seemingly following an established pattern of roaming from adjacent bushland to the neighbour's paddock as a daily routine, we began a subtle game of wits. When we were both at home and the goats made their appearance next door, we would climb the fences and round them up, retuning them to their home range. For the moment this was largely an academic exercise as, no sooner than we had them home and congratulated ourselves on finally being goat keepers, than they would make their escape when our vigilance dropped.


We persisted in this game despite its seeming futility and in the face of the increased cunning of the girls who began to understand our desire to restrict their freedom and, if given the chance, would elude our herding efforts by making a bolt for the scrub where we had no chance of following. Each time we had them home, it seemed that their stay was briefer but we were managing to get them to take some food. This was as a small reward (probably more for us than them) for being on the correct side of the fence. It was on one such occasion that we were treated to a demonstration of escape techniques and were firmly able to establish the ringleader.


Toffee had always been the leader in new activity, whether it be getting her head stuck in the fence or taking food from our hands, she had a boldness the others lacked. On the afternoon in question both Lyn and I were working in the paddock (reinforcing the electric barrier) and the girls were inquisitively keeping us company. Like children whose attention span is limited without fresh stimuli, they would wonder away when bored but seemed ready to return when something piqued their interest. Toffee's attention threshold was quite fine and it was not long before she manifested her dissatisfaction in our entertainment and appeared on the wrong side of the fence. It didn't take much effort to get her back however, when she saw the other three indulging in treats that she had no access to.


Things were looking up. We were beginning to feel optimistic that we had broken the escapism cycle and the girls were learning to be content with their lot. Perhaps their dreams of starting a feral colony along the wilds of the Mersey River were being super imposed with the utopian ideal of food on demand and the easy life with a bit of human companionship thrown in. Toffee made another bid for freedom that afternoon. This time exiting over the western boundary. Fully expecting her companions to follow suit, she called upon them to break the yolk of their human oppressors, to forgo the soft life that meant forsaking their ideals and embrace the freedom of the wilds. This time her message fell on deaf ears and the other girls contentedly maintained their curious vigil of our activities. Toffee's cries became more strident as she recognised the spell that her friends were falling under but her rhetoric wasn't working. After an hour or more she obviously decided that a more consultative approach was called for and, it seemed to us, magically reappeared on the correct side of the fence.


This was a step in the right direction. Solidarity of the masses beat charismatic leadership and the mob mentality seemed to be calling the shots. We were quietly confident that sense would overcome the siren call of the wild and our girls would now settle down to a domestic routine and be available to amuse ourselves and our cottage guests, not to mention giving us credos as real rural types. The reality by now was a fairly predictable disappointment when we went out to check the attendance roll the following morning. The score was now; Goats 10 + /Us 0.

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