Friends forever - A tail of unlikely love

BRISTOL, Va. – An animal control officer went to an address on Indiana Street to see about a dog and a goat creating a nuisance. She found a plot straight out of Milo and Otis – a pair of star-crossed four-leggeds on an unknown journey, whose bond transcends biological differences and police protocol.

Bristol authorities are calling the case one of an “unusual relationship,“ and have dubbed the pair Thelma and Louise, whose journey came to a peaceful stop on the afternoon of April 19.

That day, a chocolate Lab and a white goat trotted through the rain up the road and onto Loretta Smith’s expansive front porch. They moved together slowly, shoulder to shoulder, with the purposeful gait of wet, hungry animals heading for shelter. They found it at the doorstep of Smith, who fed the dog biscuits, puppy chow, cereal, crackers and a banana – actually intended for the goat.

“I never saw a dog eat a banana before,“ Smith said.

The goat, while relieving itself on the porch, devoured Smith’s pansies and munched a shrub. Then the goat began to dance on top of the Toyota owned by Smith’s granddaughter. Smith decided it was time to alert the authorities.

“They were so inseparable,“ said Lisa Holly, the responding animal control officer. They were curled up together on Smith’s porch when Holly arrived to pick up the Lab – or Louise, as she has been nicknamed.

The office does not work with goats, Holly told Smith, so Thelma – a young female – would have to wait for a specialist in nuisance wildlife.

But Thelma would not wait.

As Holly led Louise away on a leash, Thelma leapt up and ran after them, rearing up, bleating and attempting to climb into Holly’s truck, the officer said.

With Holly’s assistance, Thelma scrambled into the truck and fussed no further.

“They’ve probably been raised together at somebody’s farm, and somehow got into the city,“ Holly said.

The pair is currently sharing a large pen at Jones Animal Hospital in Bristol, Tenn.

“They absolutely love each other,“ said Bridget Worley, the receptionist at the hospital. “When you take the Lab out for a walk, the goat goes crazy. They don’t like to be without each other,“ she said.

In the week they have spent under observation, stark personality traits have begun to emerge. Louise the Lab is the laid-back half of duo; Thelma the goat is the animated, needy – and probably younger – half.

“This is the first time we’ve had anything like that here,“ Worley said of the unusual traveling companions.

Indeed, local animal control officials and experts do not recall a similar case.

“We’ve never picked up a dog and a goat together,“ said Holly, an 11-year veteran officer.

Ditto for Ronnie Crowder, a self-employed “critter-getter” who serves the Tri-Cities region. “A goat can pretty much get along with anything,“ he said, even though no one seems to want to adopt a stray goat.

It was another animal control officer who dubbed the Lab and the goat after the famous movie characters who break free of their rigid lives and go on a crime spree.

Not that Louise the Lab and Thelma the goat have done anything criminal – Thelma’s tap dancing on the Toyota and unauthorized flower eating notwithstanding.

“They’re two girls on a great adventure,“ Holly said.

As of Wednesday, their owner had not come forward.

“It is the police department’s hope the animals will be adopted together,“ the department deadpanned in a written statement. “It is apparent that separation of the two may be detrimental.“

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