The Jane Goodall of Goats
a novel about our inner mammal
About the book
Claire Jaynes inherits a goat farm and learns that goats fight a lot. She and her family learn to train goats and start teaching others to train their inner mammal.
Protestors suddenly block their driveway. Why would anyone protest a little backyard biology workshop? Clues lead to the nosy neighbor and the pompous professor, but as the protests spread, Claire suspects a dark force behind them.
She tracks down her adversaries and they seem too big to fight at first. But the Jaynes family builds powerful alliances while trekking wild goats, making viral animal videos, and selling goat cheese to save the farm. They make the world safe for training your mammal brain!
Chapter 1
Welcome Home
I inherited a goat farm from my uncle six years ago. When the will was read, I was not thrilled by the news because I was busy enough without having goats to manage. I should add that it was a money-losing farm – my uncle’s retirement hobby.
But it was near our home, at the other end of our small California town, so we got in the car to check it out. The kids fell in love with the goats and begged my husband and me to keep it. Frank thought it would give them a good grounding in reality, and my ears perked up when they pledged to do chores. So we looked for a way to make it work.
We calculated that we could fund the place out of savings for eighteen months if we sold our house and moved into the farmhouse. Then it would have to generate income. But how?
Frank suggested creating a goat cheese. I say “create” because he’s a marketing consultant and always dreamed of launching his own product. I was a marketing professor, so I could relate.
Before making the final decision, we sat down with the couple who ran the farm for my uncle. Bunnie and Buck lived in a cottage behind the farmhouse and worked from a trailer next to the goatyard. We stopped snickering at their barnyard names as soon as we saw how skilled they were. They managed the infrastructure and the finances as well as the animals. “You won’t need to get involved unless you want to,” Buck said. They walked us through the books and we were impressed at how organized they were.
Bunnie and Buck had raised their children on the farm and assured us that they wanted to stay. They’d welcome us as neighbors, they said, and even offered to oversee repair work on the farmhouse before we moved in. So we put our house on the market and planned to move in the next month.
When we arrived on moving day, the kids jumped out of the car and ran to the goats. I was surprised to hear fifteen-year-old Matt talk to them in an animated tone. Twelve-year-old Andrea stared at the goats as if to decode their every move. I put my chores aside to enjoy the moment.
Suddenly, a goat fight erupted. One goat reared up on its hind legs and lunged at another.
“Stop! Help!” Andrea shouted as she ran to get Buck or Bunnie. “They’re getting hurt!”
Matt shouted after her, “It’s okay, they stopped.” But a minute later, a goat crashed its skull into another goat’s skull with its full body weight. Both kids shouted at once. “Help!” “Buck!” “They’re gonna kill each other!”
“They’ll be fine,” Buck said running over. “It’s normal goat behavior. They have thick skulls for just this reason.”
“But it must hurt,” Andrea said. “Can’t you do something?”
“If I separated them, they’d start over as soon as they got back together. They fight until they clarify the dominance hierarchy. Don’t worry. It doesn’t last long. It’s nature.”
“Oh yeah, we saw that in a nature video,” Matt said. “With monkeys and wolves and horses.”
‘I remember that. They fought until one gave up.” said Andrea. “It made me sad.”
“You may see it different soon,” Buck said. “Come out and watch whenever you want. You’ll see that they’re very motivated by food. If a weaker individual gets between them and the food, they shove it. Like a toddler grabbing a toy from another toddler. We’re all born with this impulse so it takes work to restrain it.”
“Do the goats get hurt?” Andrea asked.
“They learn to protect themselves by getting out of the way of stronger individuals. They only fight when both goats think they’re stronger.”
The kids started shooting video of the goats and Buck went back to his chores. I thanked him for teaching the kids, but I was worried about my own chores. “Kids, we have a mountain of boxes to unpack to be ready for school on Monday.”
“Moooom,” they both bleated.
The kids didn’t know the real source of my time pressure. Frank was in a hurry to start up our cheese business, so I promised to work on it in the morning. Frank called it the “branding meeting” and was greatly looking forward to it.
Chapter 2
Cheese Biz
Saturday morning, I was making tea for the meeting when Bunnie appeared at our back door with homemade blueberry muffins. I was glad for the distraction because I had mixed feelings about the cheese business. It seemed to me that the world had a lot of cheese already. I didn’t see how a new cheese could make money.
We thanked Bunnie for the delicious muffins and then got down to business. The kids hovered over us, so I assumed they wanted more muffins. But I noticed that they were listening with interest. I was glad for them to get real about money, so I looked at Frank and he invited them to sit down.
He explained that we had eighteen months of runway. He didn’t say it in a panicky way, but he wanted them to understand that we’d have to sell the farm if the cheese didn’t take off.
“Let’s start by naming our cheese,” Frank said.
“Stinky cheese!” Andrea said.
“That’s dumb,” Matt barked.
Frank explained the concept of brainstorming. “We take turns making suggestions, and no criticism is allowed on the first round. We’ll judge the suggestions after we generate a good list.”
I suggested “Chèvre” and Frank said “that’s confusing and unpronounceable.”
Matt suggested “Pasty Cheese” since goat cheese looks like paste to him. Frank said, “The name should have culinary appeal.”
“What happened to not criticizing?” I said.
Then the doorbell rang.
Our next-door neighbor Suzi introduced herself. “I noticed you moving in yesterday. Usually I just see that older couple and hear all those goats.”
“Our farm is fully permitted,” I said, feeling strangely defensive. We introduced ourselves and offered Suzi a muffin.
She sat down and took a bite, and then said, “I came to tell you that your goats need more love. I’m an empath, so I know these things. When I see them fight, I know they’re not getting enough compassion.”
“That’s not what it means,” Matt said.
I put my arm around him and said, “They get the best of care from our manager Buck. I’ll introduce you to him if you’d like.”
“I wanted to tell you. Anyways, I have to leave for work now. I’m a sobriety coach and I work nights and weekends.”
The door shut behind her and we all exhaled.
“Why did you involve Buck?” Frank said.
“Why didn’t you let me explain the facts to her?” Matt said.
“What’s a sobriety coach?” Andrea said.
“I’m proud of you for trying, Matt, but I didn’t think she’d listen. She obviously just wanted to flaunt her empathy. It’s the modern equivalent of having bigger horns.”
“Will you tell me what’s a sobriety coach after the brainstorming?” Andrea said. I was glad she was paying attention.
“I have a suggestion,” Frank said. “Everyone think of good names this week and bring them to next Saturday’s meeting. For now, why don’t we go to the goatyard and learn more about what Buck does.”
While we walked there, I explained that “a sobriety coach helps people learn to resist the temptation to make bad choices.”
“Like grabbing another kid’s toy?” Andrea asked.
“She means drugs and alcohol,” Matt said.
“Anything that feels good now but hurts you later,” I said.
We stared at the goats for a long time, mesmerized by the sight of them flowing between the milking area, the feeding area, the sleeping area, and the open space. Buck had it perfectly choreographed and told us how he made it happen.
Chapter 3
Browsing
Early Sunday morning, the doorbell rang. It was Suzi.
“I can’t sleep because I keep feeling the suffering of your goats. I will need to talk to Buck.”
“I think he’s still sleeping and I hate to bother him on a Sunday.”
“No, he’s awake. I heard him call the goats. I’ll just go around back.”
She ran down the front stairs and around the side of the house. I shouted “Suuuuziiii.” I didn’t expect her to stop – I just wanted to alert the family. We all ran out the back door to catch up with her.
There, we were stunned to see Buck sitting calmly with her at the picnic table, while Bunnie put a glass of juice in her hand. We stopped at a distance to listen.
“The welfare of your goats has kept me up all night. I tried to manifest dreams of them in a green meadow, but all I see is that brown grass you have. How can you be so uncaring!”
“That’s not what goats eat,” Buck said. “They don’t eat off the ground because soiled plants cause intestinal worms. They instinctively eat from plants that are elevated, which is called browsing as opposed to grazing. So that grass has nothing to do with their diet. We have a veterinarian monitoring their diet, by the way.”
I was grateful to Buck for handling this, but it didn’t seem fair to leave it all to him. So I walked closer and said, “You didn’t sleep last night because you were working the night shift.”
“You’re not hearing me,” Suzi said with her eyeballs practically popping out.
“I hear you but I don’t agree with you.”
“You’re really insensitive,” she said, and turned to leave. She did this slowly to give me time to run after her, but I didn’t.
I thanked Buck and Bunnie profusely and hoped this wouldn’t get under their skin. I hoped the same for myself, since we had a big day of unpacking ahead of us.
Bunnie said “Can I have a minute with you for an immediate issue?” I smiled, and she continued. “Your uncle used to welcome visits from local schools. He understood the liability, but he loved the kids. We’ll continue that?”
“Hmm. Let me discuss it with Frank.”
“Well…the calendar shows a visit for tomorrow morning. Maybe I should have told you sooner.”
Hmmmm. Community relations. Might show us a better side of the community than we saw today. “Fine. Actually, I’ll come and watch since I only go to campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays.” I should assess the liability for myself, I thought. Bunnie looked so happy that I suspected the school program came from her as much as my uncle.
When I got back in the house, Andrea asked, “Why is Suzi mad at us?”
“Why is she a jerk?” Matt said.
“How did you know she worked the night shift?” Frank said.
“I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.” I couldn’t come up with good answers because I was rattled by the thought of having such a manipulative and intrusive neighbor. But it’s wrong to vent in front of your kids, so I bit my tongue very hard.
“She’s acting like a goat,” Matt said, “pushing others around when she thinks she can get away with it.” Wow, our new life had made him a philosopher!
“Let’s cool down because this is all going to blow over,” Frank said.
We scattered to unpack our boxes. As the house fell silent, a shrill goat sound pierced my ears. I heard it again and again, and after trying to ignore it for a while, I went out to ask Buck about it.
“Oh yeah, those two kids. I’ve been meaning to take care of it. I’ll do it this week.”
“Take care of it? What does that mean?” It sounded horrible.
“A simple training method. You give the goat your undivided attention, and the second it stops making noise, you give it a raisin. It goes back to making noise out of habit, but you keep watching for the split second when it stops and reward that. A raisin really gets their attention because it’s a big spurt of calories compared to their coarse natural diet. They learn to stop crying because their brain is motivated to repeat any behavior linked to a reward. But it takes time, and I’ve been busy getting the place ready for the Jaynes family. Today, it’s at the top of my list.”
“I’m confused. Is the noise natural or not?”
“It’s the natural alarm call of baby goats, but their sense of alarm is learned. These twins learned it because their mother had a difficult delivery, so she didn’t feed them for a while. They kept calling and that wired in the habit. Don’t worry, we feed them if the mother can’t, but we don’t rush it soon because that undermines nature. We set a timer and their mom fed them in less than three hours.”
“That’s fascinating. What would happen in nature without your raisins?”
“Mom would bite them when they cry because the noise attracts predators. The little nip teaches them fast.”
“Andrea would love to learn to train them. Can she help you sometime?”
“Sure. We can even do it now if she’s free.”
“I’ll send her out!”
Soon enough, the noise stopped and Andrea walked into the house with a huge smile. I decided to reward her for doing this. Of course, the activity is its own reward, but I wanted to solidify the habit so it would last when the novelty was over. What could I give her that’s as valuable as a raisin is to a goat?
“Andrea, a second-grade class is coming here to learn about goats tomorrow.”
“That’s so cool! I want to be there!”
“You have school.”
“Can’t I miss one class? I really want to see this.”
“Sure. As long as your boxes are unpacked.”
The Jane Goodall of Goats
About the book
Claire Jaynes inherits a goat farm and learns that goats fight a lot. She and her family learn to train goats and start teaching others to train their inner mammal.
Protestors suddenly block their driveway. Why would anyone protest a little backyard biology workshop? Clues lead to the nosy neighbor and the pompous professor, but as the protests spread, Claire suspects a dark force behind them.
She tracks down her adversaries and they seem too big to fight at first. But the Jaynes family builds powerful alliances while trekking wild goats, making viral animal videos, and selling goat cheese to save the farm. They make the world safe for training your mammal brain!
Chapter 1
Welcome Home
I inherited a goat farm from my uncle six years ago. When the will was read, I was not thrilled by the news because I was busy enough without having goats to manage. I should add that it was a money-losing farm – my uncle’s retirement hobby.
But it was near our home, at the other end of our small California town, so we got in the car to check it out. The kids fell in love with the goats and begged my husband and me to keep it. Frank thought it would give them a good grounding in reality, and my ears perked up when they pledged to do chores. So we looked for a way to make it work.
We calculated that we could fund the place out of savings for eighteen months if we sold our house and moved into the farmhouse. Then it would have to generate income. But how?
Frank suggested creating a goat cheese. I say “create” because he’s a marketing consultant and always dreamed of launching his own product. I was a marketing professor, so I could relate.
Before making the final decision, we sat down with the couple who ran the farm for my uncle. Bunnie and Buck lived in a cottage behind the farmhouse and worked from a trailer next to the goatyard. We stopped snickering at their barnyard names as soon as we saw how skilled they were. They managed the infrastructure and the finances as well as the animals. “You won’t need to get involved unless you want to,” Buck said. They walked us through the books and we were impressed at how organized they were.
Bunnie and Buck had raised their children on the farm and assured us that they wanted to stay. They’d welcome us as neighbors, they said, and even offered to oversee repair work on the farmhouse before we moved in. So we put our house on the market and planned to move in the next month.
When we arrived on moving day, the kids jumped out of the car and ran to the goats. I was surprised to hear fifteen-year-old Matt talk to them in an animated tone. Twelve-year-old Andrea stared at the goats as if to decode their every move. I put my chores aside to enjoy the moment.
Suddenly, a goat fight erupted. One goat reared up on its hind legs and lunged at another.
“Stop! Help!” Andrea shouted as she ran to get Buck or Bunnie. “They’re getting hurt!”
Matt shouted after her, “It’s okay, they stopped.” But a minute later, a goat crashed its skull into another goat’s skull with its full body weight. Both kids shouted at once. “Help!” “Buck!” “They’re gonna kill each other!”
“They’ll be fine,” Buck said running over. “It’s normal goat behavior. They have thick skulls for just this reason.”
“But it must hurt,” Andrea said. “Can’t you do something?”
“If I separated them, they’d start over as soon as they got back together. They fight until they clarify the dominance hierarchy. Don’t worry. It doesn’t last long. It’s nature.”
“Oh yeah, we saw that in a nature video,” Matt said. “With monkeys and wolves and horses.”
‘I remember that. They fought until one gave up.” said Andrea. “It made me sad.”
“You may see it different soon,” Buck said. “Come out and watch whenever you want. You’ll see that they’re very motivated by food. If a weaker individual gets between them and the food, they shove it. Like a toddler grabbing a toy from another toddler. We’re all born with this impulse so it takes work to restrain it.”
“Do the goats get hurt?” Andrea asked.
“They learn to protect themselves by getting out of the way of stronger individuals. They only fight when both goats think they’re stronger.”
The kids started shooting video of the goats and Buck went back to his chores. I thanked him for teaching the kids, but I was worried about my own chores. “Kids, we have a mountain of boxes to unpack to be ready for school on Monday.”
“Moooom,” they both bleated.
The kids didn’t know the real source of my time pressure. Frank was in a hurry to start up our cheese business, so I promised to work on it in the morning. Frank called it the “branding meeting” and was greatly looking forward to it.
Chapter 2
Cheese Biz
Saturday morning, I was making tea for the meeting when Bunnie appeared at our back door with homemade blueberry muffins. I was glad for the distraction because I had mixed feelings about the cheese business. It seemed to me that the world had a lot of cheese already. I didn’t see how a new cheese could make money.
We thanked Bunnie for the delicious muffins and then got down to business. The kids hovered over us, so I assumed they wanted more muffins. But I noticed that they were listening with interest. I was glad for them to get real about money, so I looked at Frank and he invited them to sit down.
He explained that we had eighteen months of runway. He didn’t say it in a panicky way, but he wanted them to understand that we’d have to sell the farm if the cheese didn’t take off.
“Let’s start by naming our cheese,” Frank said.
“Stinky cheese!” Andrea said.
“That’s dumb,” Matt barked.
Frank explained the concept of brainstorming. “We take turns making suggestions, and no criticism is allowed on the first round. We’ll judge the suggestions after we generate a good list.”
I suggested “Chèvre” and Frank said “that’s confusing and unpronounceable.”
Matt suggested “Pasty Cheese” since goat cheese looks like paste to him. Frank said, “The name should have culinary appeal.”
“What happened to not criticizing?” I said.
Then the doorbell rang.
Our next-door neighbor Suzi introduced herself. “I noticed you moving in yesterday. Usually I just see that older couple and hear all those goats.”
“Our farm is fully permitted,” I said, feeling strangely defensive. We introduced ourselves and offered Suzi a muffin.
She sat down and took a bite, and then said, “I came to tell you that your goats need more love. I’m an empath, so I know these things. When I see them fight, I know they’re not getting enough compassion.”
“That’s not what it means,” Matt said.
I put my arm around him and said, “They get the best of care from our manager Buck. I’ll introduce you to him if you’d like.”
“I wanted to tell you. Anyways, I have to leave for work now. I’m a sobriety coach and I work nights and weekends.”
The door shut behind her and we all exhaled.
“Why did you involve Buck?” Frank said.
“Why didn’t you let me explain the facts to her?” Matt said.
“What’s a sobriety coach?” Andrea said.
“I’m proud of you for trying, Matt, but I didn’t think she’d listen. She obviously just wanted to flaunt her empathy. It’s the modern equivalent of having bigger horns.”
“Will you tell me what’s a sobriety coach after the brainstorming?” Andrea said. I was glad she was paying attention.
“I have a suggestion,” Frank said. “Everyone think of good names this week and bring them to next Saturday’s meeting. For now, why don’t we go to the goatyard and learn more about what Buck does.”
While we walked there, I explained that “a sobriety coach helps people learn to resist the temptation to make bad choices.”
“Like grabbing another kid’s toy?” Andrea asked.
“She means drugs and alcohol,” Matt said.
“Anything that feels good now but hurts you later,” I said.
We stared at the goats for a long time, mesmerized by the sight of them flowing between the milking area, the feeding area, the sleeping area, and the open space. Buck had it perfectly choreographed and told us how he made it happen.
Chapter 3
Browsing
Early Sunday morning, the doorbell rang. It was Suzi.
“I can’t sleep because I keep feeling the suffering of your goats. I will need to talk to Buck.”
“I think he’s still sleeping and I hate to bother him on a Sunday.”
“No, he’s awake. I heard him call the goats. I’ll just go around back.”
She ran down the front stairs and around the side of the house. I shouted “Suuuuziiii.” I didn’t expect her to stop – I just wanted to alert the family. We all ran out the back door to catch up with her.
There, we were stunned to see Buck sitting calmly with her at the picnic table, while Bunnie put a glass of juice in her hand. We stopped at a distance to listen.
“The welfare of your goats has kept me up all night. I tried to manifest dreams of them in a green meadow, but all I see is that brown grass you have. How can you be so uncaring!”
“That’s not what goats eat,” Buck said. “They don’t eat off the ground because soiled plants cause intestinal worms. They instinctively eat from plants that are elevated, which is called browsing as opposed to grazing. So that grass has nothing to do with their diet. We have a veterinarian monitoring their diet, by the way.”
I was grateful to Buck for handling this, but it didn’t seem fair to leave it all to him. So I walked closer and said, “You didn’t sleep last night because you were working the night shift.”
“You’re not hearing me,” Suzi said with her eyeballs practically popping out.
“I hear you but I don’t agree with you.”
“You’re really insensitive,” she said, and turned to leave. She did this slowly to give me time to run after her, but I didn’t.
I thanked Buck and Bunnie profusely and hoped this wouldn’t get under their skin. I hoped the same for myself, since we had a big day of unpacking ahead of us.
Bunnie said “Can I have a minute with you for an immediate issue?” I smiled, and she continued. “Your uncle used to welcome visits from local schools. He understood the liability, but he loved the kids. We’ll continue that?”
“Hmm. Let me discuss it with Frank.”
“Well…the calendar shows a visit for tomorrow morning. Maybe I should have told you sooner.”
Hmmmm. Community relations. Might show us a better side of the community than we saw today. “Fine. Actually, I’ll come and watch since I only go to campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays.” I should assess the liability for myself, I thought. Bunnie looked so happy that I suspected the school program came from her as much as my uncle.
When I got back in the house, Andrea asked, “Why is Suzi mad at us?”
“Why is she a jerk?” Matt said.
“How did you know she worked the night shift?” Frank said.
“I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.” I couldn’t come up with good answers because I was rattled by the thought of having such a manipulative and intrusive neighbor. But it’s wrong to vent in front of your kids, so I bit my tongue very hard.
“She’s acting like a goat,” Matt said, “pushing others around when she thinks she can get away with it.” Wow, our new life had made him a philosopher!
“Let’s cool down because this is all going to blow over,” Frank said.
We scattered to unpack our boxes. As the house fell silent, a shrill goat sound pierced my ears. I heard it again and again, and after trying to ignore it for a while, I went out to ask Buck about it.
“Oh yeah, those two kids. I’ve been meaning to take care of it. I’ll do it this week.”
“Take care of it? What does that mean?” It sounded horrible.
“A simple training method. You give the goat your undivided attention, and the second it stops making noise, you give it a raisin. It goes back to making noise out of habit, but you keep watching for the split second when it stops and reward that. A raisin really gets their attention because it’s a big spurt of calories compared to their coarse natural diet. They learn to stop crying because their brain is motivated to repeat any behavior linked to a reward. But it takes time, and I’ve been busy getting the place ready for the Jaynes family. Today, it’s at the top of my list.”
“I’m confused. Is the noise natural or not?”
“It’s the natural alarm call of baby goats, but their sense of alarm is learned. These twins learned it because their mother had a difficult delivery, so she didn’t feed them for a while. They kept calling and that wired in the habit. Don’t worry, we feed them if the mother can’t, but we don’t rush it soon because that undermines nature. We set a timer and their mom fed them in less than three hours.”
“That’s fascinating. What would happen in nature without your raisins?”
“Mom would bite them when they cry because the noise attracts predators. The little nip teaches them fast.”
“Andrea would love to learn to train them. Can she help you sometime?”
“Sure. We can even do it now if she’s free.”
“I’ll send her out!”
Soon enough, the noise stopped and Andrea walked into the house with a huge smile. I decided to reward her for doing this. Of course, the activity is its own reward, but I wanted to solidify the habit so it would last when the novelty was over. What could I give her that’s as valuable as a raisin is to a goat?
“Andrea, a second-grade class is coming here to learn about goats tomorrow.”
“That’s so cool! I want to be there!”
“You have school.”
“Can’t I miss one class? I really want to see this.”
“Sure. As long as your boxes are unpacked.”
Top reviews
I really enjoyed reading this book! I found it entertaining and educational.
Top reviews
I really enjoyed reading this book! I found it entertaining and educational.
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