Chat
02-04-2016, 02:23 PM
I thought of that too, but it doesn't matter how hard or soft I touch him--he just plain doesn't like it. He doesn't even like to have his back scratched, and I thought EVERY goat liked to have it's back scratched! He also HATES it when I even approach him with a brush. If I tie him up short he will barely tolerate the stiff dandy brush that every other goat enjoys, but he absolutely panics if I bring out the wire shedding brush. Now, in his defense, a couple of the other goats also don't like the wire brush (and some of them adore it), but none of the other goats panic at the mere touch of it to their skin. Brushes do raise a little static electricity, and I know that our bodies also produce a tiny bit of electricity when we touch. I sometimes wonder if maybe Sputnik is super-sensitive to that electricity.
In any case, after I tried diligently for several months to get him to enjoy being touched, I've decided that I can't force him to change his feelings. I can work with his attitude and his intelligence and even his emotions, but if he gets a creepy-crawly sensation from being touched then I'm not sure there's any way to change that, and it might be akin to torture for me to try. He works very well off rewards, hand signals, and voice so I'm sticking with those tools. I make a point to touch him a little every day so that he is used to it and doesn't react in sudden and dangerous ways. It's torture for him when I have to pull a burr out of his coat, but he is learning that he must sometimes accept it and not leap up into my face or run over top of me in alarm. I think he respects me a lot more now that I'm respecting him by not trying to touch him all the time, as if he could learn to like it.
In any case, after I tried diligently for several months to get him to enjoy being touched, I've decided that I can't force him to change his feelings. I can work with his attitude and his intelligence and even his emotions, but if he gets a creepy-crawly sensation from being touched then I'm not sure there's any way to change that, and it might be akin to torture for me to try. He works very well off rewards, hand signals, and voice so I'm sticking with those tools. I make a point to touch him a little every day so that he is used to it and doesn't react in sudden and dangerous ways. It's torture for him when I have to pull a burr out of his coat, but he is learning that he must sometimes accept it and not leap up into my face or run over top of me in alarm. I think he respects me a lot more now that I'm respecting him by not trying to touch him all the time, as if he could learn to like it.