The Tale of Terrence

This is Terrence. If you don’t know his story so far, let me recap. (If you’re familiar with Terrence’s story so far, feel free to skip this paragraph. We won’t tell him. Promise.) We met Terrence after connecting with a local homeowner on social media. Terrence had appeared in her yard in June of 2021 and decided to stay. While cute, he wasn’t exactly an invited or polite guest. He had taken over the deck and patio, was scaring their small dog, and turned their yard into his own personal salad bar. They had attempted to shoo him off, but he just kept coming back. After contacting local law enforcement, animal shelters, and posting on social media about him, the homeowner was told she’d gained a goat whether she wanted him or not. She named him Terrence. And that’s when Hullabaloo entered the story. We connected with the homeowner through a local Facebook group in mid-July and offered to come meet Terrence and see what we could do. We swung by a local feed store and picked up some sweet horse feed (ie: goat crack) and drove out to their property. Terrence wouldn’t let us within 50 feet of him at that first visit. He dashed off into the woods and watched us leave his lunch in a bucket and drive off. I went to visit Terrence nearly every day with no real plan other than to try and earn his trust and go from there. We aren’t set up for goats (yet) at our sanctuary, but I knew it was going to take time to get him comfortable enough to capture and transport. And boy, was I not wrong. By late August, we had made immense strides with Terrence, enough so that he would eat out of my hand (for a few minutes before he got impatient), but I wasn’t sure how or if he’d let us get a lead on him or how we’d get him into a trailer. Fall was right around the corner though and I knew we were running out of time to get him somewhere safe before the weather got too cold for him. We needed a new plan. And we needed help implementing it.

OK, we’re at the part of the story where everyone should be caught up now. Things were pretty status quo with Terrence for a bit. I was visiting him almost daily and he was definitely starting to trust me more, but he was still immensely skittish and had a whole lots of woods to run off to when he got too scared. There were days when I showed up with his food where he was completely MIA, but usually he was waiting for me on one of the decks, I’d say hi from below, and he’d meet me on the other side of the house to eat lunch (and tolerate my hanging out with him while he ate). As I mentioned before, I knew we were getting closer to cooler weather and we needed to come up with next steps for Terrence. I would have loved to bring him to HFS (and planned to for a bit), but as I got to know Terrence more I realized there were a few flaws with that plan. First, we didn’t have the infrastructure set up to keep him at HFS safely or a way to transport him. As a new sanctuary, we’re still setting up and learning as we go. While the plan is to rescue goats in the future, we need proper fencing, shelter, and a trailer to ensure they have a safe and secure home here (as well as a way to get them here). Second, Terrence was going to need medical care and we don’t have a medical fund set up yet. While Terrence is obviously a young guy, we have no clue how long he’s been out on his own or what parasites or illnesses he may have picked up along the way. At there very least, he was going to need to be neutered and that’s not an inexpensive procedure for a farm animal. Lastly, and perhaps the most important, the more I got to know Terrence, the more it became obvious that he most likely hadn’t had a single day of his life where he was allowed to just be a goat. The prevailing theory was that he escaped from a local slaughterhouse or auction. He has a very distinct chunk missing out of his left ear where he was most likely tagged (we assume he ripped it out in his escape). That coupled with his very skittish behavior and being intact all pointed to a previous life kept in solitude and confinement, with very little interaction with other goats (or humans for that matter). Terrence needed an existing herd of goat friends he could be integrated with and who could teach him how to be a goat. We could haven found a way to overcome a lot of the hurdles to bringing Terrence to HFS, but having an already established goat family for him wasn’t one we could solve. It would have been selfish of us to try. Once I realized HFS was not going to be the place for Terrence, I called in the reinforcements.

I’ve talked about Farm Sanctuary before. They were the very first established farm animal sanctuary in the world and have been around since the 1980’s. We’re blessed to have them as neighbors (their Watkins Glen sanctuary is about two hours away from us) and even more blessed that they’re generous with their resources and efforts when another sanctuary needs help. They’ve already been invaluable to us at HFS with advice and wisdom as we’re starting out. When I reached out and told them about Terrence, they immediately jumped on board and started brainstorming. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a permanent spot for him at Watkins Glen, but they agreed to post about him on their adoption network’s social media. When that didn’t immediately pan out, they reached out to possible placement options directly. The next time I heard from them, they not only had permanent placement secured for Terrence, but were sending a team to help safely capture him, would ensure he was neutered and medically cleared at their Watkins Glen facility, and then transport him to his forever home once he was fully recovered. Terrence finally had a safe and forever future secured! Now we just had to secure Terrence.

The Farm Sanctuary Team showed up bright and early on a Saturday morning. After some pre-planning over the phone, they came prepared with a 16 foot trailer filled with cattle panels, fencing, gates, and a few tricks up their very experienced sleeves on how to best go about capturing Terrence. We all kept our fingers crossed that they’d be leaving that day with Terrence, but they were prepared for it to take longer. After scoping out the property, they began putting together a temporary pen around the deck that Terrence would typically eat. The primary objective was to capture him safely, with no risk of injury to Terrence or the team, so a lot of time was spent ensuring every base was covered during construction. The pen included a spring loaded gate that could be triggered from a distance with a rope. Once the pen was complete, the Farm Sanctuary Team would wait out of sight and, hopefully, Terrence would follow me (and his lunch) into the pen at his normal eating time. Terrence had been cautiously observing me and the team all morning as we worked and even approached me a couple times during the process. He was probably the least skittish I’d ever seen him since meeting him back in July. Of course, once the Farm Sanctuary Team was out of sight and we were ready to put the plan into action, Terrence was nowhere to be found! So, we waited.

After about an hour, Terrence made another appearance. He decided it was a perfect time to sunbathe from the deck on the opposite side of the house from where we had set up the pen. After some coaxing, he circled the house a few times, but made sure to steer clear of the pen entirely. We set up a trail of feed and orange segments (his favorite snack) leading into the pen, but Terrence wasn’t falling for it. He’d munch on anything outside the pen, but avoided anything leading through the gate into the pen. On the third go-round, I managed to get him to eat some food from my hand. At this point, we were well outside the pen and on the opposite side of it from the gate. Working as slowly as I could without scaring him off, I made my way toward the gate while offering him handfuls of food from the bucket of feed I was carrying. He, very reluctantly, followed me towards the gate. At one point, I stepped backwards and broke a stick under my foot and I was sure it was all over. Terrence startled, but it was well past his typical mealtime at this point so I think his hunger prevailed. He continued to follow me through the gate and then onto the deck! Once inside, I called out “NOW!” to signal someone to pull the rope and close the gate. I was still inside the pen with Terrence, but was sure I could make it to the gate and get out safely as long as Terrence was focused on his food. I saw the rope go taut, but the gate remained open. It hadn’t worked! After a moment of panic, I moved slowly through the gate and figured I’d close it from the other side, but just as I made it outside of the pen, the rope went taut again and the gate closed behind me. Whew! Terrence was safely inside the pen and was, calmly, eating his food. I walked around the outside of the pen to where my husband and the homeowner were waiting for me with open arms. Shaking and sobbing, we all embraced in hugs of relief that were nearly two months in the making. The Farm Sanctuary Team ran down from their hiding places and joined us in quiet celebration (so we didn’t spook Terrence).

Now came the hard part. With Terrence safely inside the pen, the Farm Sanctuary Team needed to secure and carry him up the hill to their trailer. Since the house is situated at the bottom of a long sloped driveway, the trailer needed to be parked at a level section about halfway down, but still above where the pen was set up. They’d need to carry him up a flight of steep wooden stairs without injuring Terrence or any of the team. This is where I stood back and let the experts do their thing. Together and like a well oiled machine, they used a panel to slowly ease Terrence towards the back of the pen. Then one member of the team was able to secure his horns while another placed a lead on him. While still holding on to his horns, they guided him out of the pen where two other members of the team secured both pairs of his legs. Together, they lifted and carried Terrence up those stairs and got him inside the trailer. Now, Terrence is a young, strong goat with an obvious history of trauma and abuse. We were all concerned with how this part of the process was going to go and how much of a fight Terrence would put up against it. You guys, as soon as they lifted his legs off the ground it was like Terrence knew he needed to stay calm and go with the flow. He didn’t struggle from that moment on (and it was not a short walk to the trailer). It was truly one of those most amazing things I’ve ever witnessed. We watched from the sidelines, with tears in our eyes, as Terrence was calmly loaded into the trailer.

Goodbyes are never easy and that was especially true that Saturday afternoon. After over six hours working with the Farm Sanctuary crew and achieving our goal, we had to say goodbye to new friends with a shared passion for animal rescue. After nearly two months, I also had to say goodbye to Terrence as he was driven off to a new, happy, healthy life. I knew it was going to be a tough moment when it came, but I’m proud to say that most of my tears were from happiness and relief. It took a village to rescue him and I’m forever grateful I got to be a part of that village. Without the patience and tolerance of the homeowners and their efforts to Terrence a safe home, we would have never known about Terrence and he might have never made it through the winter in the woods. Without the expertise, equipment, and generosity of Farm Sanctuary, we would have never been able to capture Terrence and transport him to his forever home. Without me visiting him every day and earning his trust, Terrence would have been nearly impossible to catch safely. Without Terrence being brave enough to escape his Factory Farm existence, none of us would have been blessed with knowing him and being part of his story.

Terrence is currently safe and sound at Farm Sanctuary. He has a straw-filled stall in a warm barn where he can sleep sheltered from the elements, gets regular and healthy meals to help him grow and stay strong, and has a team of caretakers who have fallen in love with him as much as we did. He’s scheduled to be neutered shortly, but is otherwise healthy from a medical standpoint. I’ll continue to post updates on Terrence as we get them and will let you all know where his forever home ends up being, so you can then follow along and support his care there.

Terrence will forever be a Hullabaloo Hero whether he ended up at HQ or not. He embodies everything we stand for and everything we know a superhero to be. He fought for his own freedom and overcame incredible odds to achieve it, was brave enough to accept help from total strangers, and will live the rest of his life out as the superhero goat he was always meant to be.