The Great Goat Getaway

 Lucas, Texas— Wednesday afternoon, Tony Luken was working in his yard when he heard the unexpected sound of bleating. Living out in the country, most people wouldn’t think twice about hearing goats, but the sound was coming from the creek, so Tony decided to check it out.  Sure enough, when he got through the brush, he discovered about twenty female goats and babies. He immediately asked his wife to post a notice on the neighborhood website about the lost animals and then got to work attempting to capture the runaways.

Kim Ezell was planting flowers when she heard the commotion and joined Tony as he tried to steer the herd away from the road. They got on their phones and started making calls to the city and to neighbors as they cornered the critters in the back of Keith Droge’s home and waited for help. Soon Stephane Schertz, a goat owner herself, showed up with dog leashes to try to round up the group. As neighbors reached out to neighbors, phones went crazy as people did what people do in Lucas-they help each other. Soon a call was made to Paige Dunleavey, who had a good idea to whom the goats belonged. She got ahold of Brenda Rizos, asking if she was missing goats. One look out her window told the story. All of Brenda’s horses were standing by the gate, clearly agitated that the goats had gone on a field trip and left them all behind.

Brenda grabbed some feed, jumped on her ATV and headed to the creek, since the road between her home and Snyder lane was blocked with construction. Zooming through the mud and water, she made it to the Droge’s home and her runaway herd. By this time, Marti Luken, Kathy Philllips, as well as Mike Toomey were on the case, wrangling the unruly goats. When Brenda showed up with the feed, the goats began to follow her. She took the lead with Tony taking up the rear, as they slogged their way back through the mud and water, through Mike Toomey’s pasture and finally to the safety of the Rizos’s property, only to learn two were missing. A set of twins had gotten separated from the herd and were lost. Brenda and Tony went back to search for them, but Kim and Stephanie had already found them “bawling like babies” about being left behind.  Stephanie got a leash around one of them, but it bucked and fought like a wild stallion. While she wrestled with one, Tony chased after the other, finally corning it and scooping it up in his arms. Once captured, the exhausted infant fell asleep. Stephanie got the other one rounded up and Tony held the troublesome twins while Brenda drove the now familiar path by the creek to get the babies back home.                  

“I’m just so grateful for everyone’s help with this! It would have been so easy for those goats to get lost back there and snatched up by coyotes!” Brenda said. “Tony Luken gets the title of ‘Chief Goat Wrangler’ for all he did to help!” she laughs. “And Stephanie Schertz is the ‘Goat Guru Supreme!”

“It was quite an adventure,” says Kim Ezell. “I met new friends and neighbors and had a lot of laughs,” she continued.

All involved had a wild and memorable time, except the horses, who are likely still grumpy about missing out on all the fun. 

Author Kathy Walters is a member of the Allen 2nd Ward of the Allen Texas Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.