Happy reunion, after Southwest Precinct got someone’s goat

| Pets | West Seattle news | West Seattle police

That’s Southwest Precinct Officer Kathleen Graves sharing in the happy reunion that ended a minidrama that played out earlier this evening: We got e-mail and text messages from Officer Bruce Wind that Officer Graves had found that goat at 32nd and Elmgrove (map), and perhaps we could get the word out fast enough for the owner to claim the goat before Animal Control arrived. So we posted a note in the WSB Forums and sent it out via Twitter and Facebook. Someone who saw one of those posts called the goat’s owner, and she retrieved it from the precinct, where it had been hanging out in a holding cell:

As one of the e-mails received captioned that photo, “It’s gotta go real baaa-aa-aad” … and gone it has … gone home. Gotta love a happy ending now and then.

56bricks February 3, 2009 (7:51 pm)

I always thought that smell was my cellies!

Lisa February 3, 2009 (7:56 pm)

I just love a happy ending with goats!

d February 3, 2009 (8:08 pm)

Don’t eat the Charmin!

Babs February 3, 2009 (8:45 pm)

With all the sad news the last couple day around the WS hood – this was a sweet smile maker. Thanks for the post.

D.C. February 3, 2009 (9:08 pm)

Nice work WSB. With all the recent sad news, it’s sometimes easy to forget how much the WS community benefits from the cooperation we see between WSB and city departments like the SPD. Keep it up!

happygoat February 3, 2009 (9:39 pm)

great photos! Classic, the goat just hanging in the holding cell eating toilet paper. I am sure he is the first to feel that relaxed in there.

WSB February 3, 2009 (9:48 pm)

they are great, and in the spirit of credit-where-credit’s-due, I should be clear – the photos were taken and sent by the precinct team – your co-publishers here were in two other corners of West Seattle at the time – they also provided a cute pic that I posted in the forum in the moments before we learned of the reunion – TR

PDieter February 3, 2009 (10:07 pm)

Gotta love a happy ending now and then.

truer words were never written

pigeonmom February 3, 2009 (10:50 pm)

Goat in holding cell, eating toilet paper=pic of the year. :-D

pigeonmom February 3, 2009 (10:51 pm)

Anyone know the name of the cute little thing?

Eddie February 4, 2009 (6:24 am)

Was listening to the scanner last night when the officer reported that the goat was “in custody” and asked if the dispatcher had an ETA for Animal Control. When told that Animal Control would be at least an hour, the officer said that they had the goat in the squad car and would be taking it to the precinct.

Just then, on the normally quite well behaved and professional airwaves, someone broadcast: “Baaaaaa-aaaaa”

austin February 4, 2009 (7:35 am)

The comments about this are almost as funny as the holding cell photo. SW precinct really needs a framed hard copy of that.

Kelly K February 4, 2009 (8:23 am)

Yep, his name is Buddy. He’s my neighbor. And a he’s sweet but a little devil, too. As you might expect from a goat, he’ll eat anything and is really good at jumping. He often perches on the tiniest windowsill on the house so he can look over the fence and bleat at me as I walk to the bus stop. I’m glad he’s home safe and sound!

cheyenne February 4, 2009 (8:26 am)

His name is Buddy and he is happy to be home again!

cheyenne February 4, 2009 (8:31 am)

Oh and ditto D.C.’s comment–Kudos to WSB and SW Precinct for helping me quickly locate the Budster!!! West Seattle Blog does it again!

WSB February 4, 2009 (10:21 am)

Cheyenne, thanks for commenting … my son and I were talking about the story during a late-night walk last night and he wanted to know “Whose goat WAS it?” and I said, I didn’t have that information but I suspected that by sometime (today) that person would probably find the report online and “say” something :) [He also was pretty amazed at the fact people can and do keep goats in the city. Not a farm animal? he asked. You seen any farms around here lately, sweetie? I replied.] – TR

P February 4, 2009 (10:30 am)

someone has roosters down the street from me, and in the summer I get my regular wakeup at the crack of dawn…..but then I am just a smidge outside of city limits.

Cleveland Ken February 4, 2009 (4:26 pm)

She was lucky to get the goat back. I know many people in that neighborhood who would have eaten Buddy for dinner. You can’t leave a chunk of meat running around like that.

What The February 4, 2009 (6:59 pm)

Just back off and put down the Charmin…

cheyenne February 4, 2009 (8:11 pm)

Well, the gate is too low and I have to put up some wire fencing over it: I was dealing with an emergency on the phone, briefly, and Buddy took it upon himself to stroll out front. I knew someone had taken him because he was just gone.

I heard they showed these pics on KIRO news tonight, so WSB is getting a little extra attention
and I’d like to crawl under a rock :)

WSB February 4, 2009 (8:14 pm)

The citywide media checks our site for story tips but in this case – the police department posted the story on their own site, SPDBlotter, today:
http://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2009/02/04/goat-reunited-with-owner-in-west-seattle/
nominally mentioning WSB but really, it’s all about the police department and customer service. And in a time when there’s so much bad news … this story is making a lot of people smile today. So tell Buddy that in an odd way, he did a good thing, though of course you don’t want to ENCOURAGE him. (Also, I think the photo in the cell with the tissue is the big hook here. If it had been just the photo of you and the officer and the goat, maybe not such a big deal, but even Slog couldn’t resist Goat n Tissue.)
-Tracy