TWO DOGS AND A GOAT

This is a true story with a nice, happy ending, so I hope you will like it.  And the way it all started was that back in July, at this fancy wedding chapel place in Dallas, some people found a Great Dane and a goat just  hanging around on the lawn.  I think maybe they wanted to get married, and that's why they ran away from home and came to the wedding chapel, but I can't totally prove that.  Anyway they were very, very good friends who loved each other very much, and they wanted to spend their whole lives together.

But instead getting married, the goat and the Great Dane ended up at the East Lake Pet Orphanage.  And the Dane got named Judy, and the goat got named Minnelli.  They did everything together all the time, like eating together and sleeping all cuddled up together.  And Dr. Karen Fling, the veterinarian who founded the shelter, said "This is definitely the most unusual inter-species match-up of pets I've ever seen."

Pretty soon lots of people heard about Judy and Minnelli and started talking about them in blogs and newspapers and on TV.  And then the sheriff of the county went to the pet orphanage and told Dr. Fling that it was illegal to keep a goat at her shelter because a goat was livestock and not a pet.  So poor Minnelli got carted off to a place where other stray goats were kept, and he was going to probably be taken to a livestock auction and sold for about $25 and made into goat meat.

Lots of people got very upset when they heard this, and they made a huge fuss about it.  So in the end, the Dallas County Commissioner told everybody that Minnelli would not be auctioned off.  Whew!

Then right about that time, the owners of Judy and Minnelli showed up at the pet orphanage, and they said that Judy's real name was Echo, and that Minnelli's real name was Mow.  And they had another dog who was a 3-legged yellow lab named Lucky.  These people couldn't afford to keep their two dogs and goat anymore, and they were very sad for Lucky because he missed his two buddies a whole bunch.  So the owners signed over all three animals to the pet orphanage with the condition that they would all three be adopted out together.

Then the shelter started taking applications from people who wanted to adopt the three animals, and lots of people applied to do this. But first the two dogs had to get treated for heartworms, so that took awhile and cost a bunch of money.  And when they got well from the heartworms, they had to be spayed and neutered.  And Minnelli had to get some medical stuff done, too, but not nearly as much as the dogs did.

A lot of people held fundraisers and sent donations to pay the veterinary bills for Judy, Minelli, and Lucky.  And just when it seemed like the three of them were all ready to be adopted, Judy got a bad foot infection, and that took almost two months to heal up.

Meanwhile, the shelter chose five of the best applications and talked to the people, and finally, in November, they chose the people who would get to adopt the animals.  And the adopters turned out to be Norman and Sandra Williams, who live in Ennis, Texas.  Mr. and Mrs. Williams took the "three amigos," as they call them, home on November 27.  The Williamses live on three acres of land, where they have a horse and a llama, plus some cats, dogs, birds, chickens, geese, and ducks.  Mrs. Williams says that Judy, Minnelli, and Lucky "walk around like a little troop; where one goes, the others go."  And she also says, "They're doing great and they'll be happy here for the rest of their lives."

Now, see?  Isn't that one of the nicest stories you ever heard?