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Mark Gladue did a double take when he was driving through Beaver Lake Cree Nation, about 170 kilometres north of Edmonton, earlier this week.
“I stopped and I looked. I’m like, that’s a goat with a bunch of freaking rez dogs,” said Gladue, a community water treatment operator who is Cree and Navajo.
“I made a little noise, like ‘baaaa’ and got the others’ attention, and they looked and I took a picture.”
Gladue posted the photo to social media and had people commenting from all over Canada and it was shared as far as Arizona.
“I’m just really happy that I’m able to make people laugh and I think that’s a huge thing for Native Americans. Laughter is a really big thing for medicine,” said Gladue.
Goats aren’t common in the community; Gerald Whitford, the band’s chief administrative officer, said you’re more likely to see horses or cows in the area.
It turns out the goat’s name is Bruce and he belongs to nine-year-old Louise May Lewis, known by her family as Baby May.
May wanted a pet deer for her birthday, but her parents didn’t think that was possible. Instead the pair got her a bottle-fed goat that was still in diapers.
“She was just surprised, everybody was,” said May’s mother April Mountain.
“Everyone was shocked, like, ‘Is that a goat in the house?'”
Bruce joined the family that includes five children, three dogs and two birds. Bruce is out with the family dogs in Gladue’s photo.
Mountain said owning a goat was an adjustment because they had to put rubber handle bar grips on his horns to stop him from scratching up the place.
And Bruce has quite the attitude.
“He’s very stubborn. He won’t eat goat food; he thinks he is a dog,” said Mountain.
When he roams with his pack, neighbours call concerned that he’s out with dogs, but Mountain said they just laugh and go and pick him up.
“We love him,” said Mountain.
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