When you find a place that feels like home, the natural response is to want to stay. Usually one might find similarities and things that remind them of familiar territory. However, every situation is different, and for one stray cat, he found a home in an unlikely place.
When Jan Goswick came out to check on her goats, she noticed a gray puff of some sort on one of the resting areas for the animals. She thought it was a stuffed toy, but when she went to pick it up, it moved and actually ran away. It turned out to be a stray kitten!
Jan ran after the kitten but she couldn’t find him. But he wasn’t gone for long – only 30 minutes later, the kitten returned to the goat pen. They named the cat GG, short for The Gray Goat.
In November of 2020, Jan and her husband had purchased their first two Nigerian Dwarf goats. They named them Peanut and Marvin. It has been quite a journey since then.
“We knew we would love the goats, but I truly did not anticipate how much I would love these boys,” Jan said. “They are smart, fun, and the most loving animals in the world.”
Jan and her husband love their goats, but an unfortunate accident took Marvin away. The loss was hard, and she knew how fragile goats are, so she was determined to bring Peanut some company.
“Goats cannot be alone, they must be with at least one other goat,” Jan explained. “Many people do not understand how fragile goats are, but they are very fragile. I knew the stress of losing Marvy and Peanut being alone may kill him.”
Enter GG. The kitten arrived about a week-and-a-half later after Jan purchased two additional goats to bond with Peanut. They all had to get used to one another as she and Peanut struggled with the loss of Marvin. Things perked up when GG arrived.
“He followed them everywhere they went, played with them, teased them, and would sleep with them at night. It wasn’t until GG showed up, that Peanut started acting like his old self again,” Jan said.
Not only was Peanut acting just as happy as he once was, so were his new siblings. Everyone was enjoying GG. And a bond that once felt lost was starting to reform.
Jan said they asked their neighbors if it was their cat or if they knew of someone whose pet might be missing, but there were no takers. So, they kept the kitten.
It would take about two weeks before the cat would let Jan and her husband hold him. Peanut unfortunately got sick. The kitten could sense something was wrong, and one day while Jan was sitting with her ill goat, GG jumped up on her chest.
Shortly after Peanut recovered and GG began to bond with Jan, the kitten got sick itself with an eye infection. The diagnosis resulted in him having to stay indoors to heal. Further complications would determine he would have to remain an indoor cat.
“He hated it!” Jan said. “But we wanted him to get better.”
He would look outside at the goat pen and the goats would even come visit him at the back door. Seeing how hard it was, they added another cat to the family, Pickles. This helped a lot.
The family shares their adventures on TikTok and have gained a following from pet lovers. They also recently set up a GoFundMe page, to help cover some of the medical bills and someday help them build an outdoor enclosure so that GG can once again play with his beloved goats.
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