Pawsome Pets: This adopted goat thinks she’s a dog

“Animal welfare volunteers Shravan Krishnan and Dinesh Baba had gone to rescue some other dog when they saw this kid tied to a pole; she was feeding on garbage lying around,” says Prasanna. “She looked really frail so they picked her up and took her to their shelter initially. When they couldn’t keep her for long because the dogs were picking on her, they called me to adopt her.” She was weak and had an intestine infection — for bovines and goats, if they have loose stools for long, it usually means they’ll meet their end soon, vets told the couple, “But thankfully, we were able to nurse her back to health over a month,” they smile.

As she began perking up, she was up to monkey tricks. Says Prasanna, “She used to dig out and eat paper and plastic so it proved she was a city goat; she just couldn’t fathom the concept of eating grass for food! I began taking her out for an hour and two to graze and sat by her side hoping she’d eventually learn how to ‘goat’.” As for her name, he’d put up a picture of her on Facebook asking friends to suggest some options. One of them said, “She was sort of ‘given’ to you like how families give each other Eidi (gifts exchanged on Eid) so why don’t you name her after that?” Naturally, they went with it.

Though she’s not a kid anymore, the frisky goat is a handful and barely sits still. “She grew up around dogs so now she thinks she is one. Once, someone had boarded a Rottweiler with us for aggression issues and Eidi would go and fight with it! She is so confident around other animals that she is like the older sibling that loves bullying younger ones. I think she takes after me,” he grins.

She’s quite the smart one too and has learnt basic commands like shake hand, getting into the car, climbing stairs and hopping onto her papa’s back if he bends down. However, what the family finds peculiar about Eidi is the “racist side” of her personality. “She loves certain people and likes to get petted by them but she has a strong sense of hatred towards some; she won’t even venture close to them. She doesn’t like other goats either. Just watching her antics keeps us occupied and entertained the whole day,” he tells us, before running off to see what mischief the goat was up to!