I saw this prize at the edge of the road when I was walking the dogs Thursday morning and couldn’t figure out what it was for a while.

Eventually it dawned on me that it was a goat horn. It was confirmed when I saw the partial goat leg nearby.

Sam was fascinated. He picked it up and walked the rest of the way down to our turnaround, and then most of the way back up. He eventually dropped it and Zeke picked it for a while. Then he dropped it and Sam picked it up again. I let him keep it until we reached the house, then I made him drop it (good dog, Sam!).

I was going to leave it in the driveway, thinking maybe it would eventually turn into a good chew toy, but the dogs were obsessed with it and tried to get to it every time we went outside. I had to put it in the trash.

Goats are not native to this area, but there are two that have been roaming for a while. A neighbor got them to try to keep the kudzu at bay at his house. He tied them with a rope and, of course, they chewed through their ropes and escaped. People on the Facebook group around here post occasionally about seeing them. The last I heard they were living on Rocky Mountain, which divides Big Texas Valley from Little Texas Valley, and upon the peak of which is an artificial lake impounded as part of a pump-storage electrical power generating plant. It’s probably a good place for them.

That leaves only the question of where the deceased goat whose partial remains we found came from. And what happened to the rest of the body?

Here’s a quick note on horns that everyone probably already knows. Horns, found on members of the bovids, have a keratin sheath and remain on the animal for life unless forcefully removed. They are (generally) not branched, except for the pronghorn.  Both male and female bovids grow horns. Antlers, found on members of the deer family (cervids), have a bony structure and are grown and shed every year. They are also typically branched. It seems that reindeer are the only species in which females as well as males have antlers.