Friday, August 15, 2003
Showing Your Goat
In late July I attended the Pygmy Goat Show at the St. Joseph County 4-H Fair. I’m assuming you weren’t there. It takes place at one end of the goat barn, on a dirt floor. Spectators, mostly parents, populate a not-so-grand aluminum grand stand and quietly observe the proceedings. During a goat show, few opportunities for cheering the competition arise—none, really, until the end. Points are being scored, but in the judge’s head.
The show is preceded by the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance and then the 4-H Pledge: “I pledge my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service, and my health to better living. For my club, my community, my country and my world.” There’s something humble and yet optimistic in those words “clearer...greater...larger...better,” no boasting, but a commitment to improvement.
The show, as it turns out, is less about the goats than about the skill of the young people handling them. There are three separate shows for the three age groups: seniors (basically high school kids), intermediates (middle schoolers, more or less), and juniors (the younger crowd). For the most part the seniors knew what they were doing. The judge, an authoritative middle-aged woman, stood before them, ordering them to lead their goats this way and that. She approached each goat and inspected its hooves and hair, checking the grooming. From the beginning, the young people locked their eyes on her, staring hard. A few seemed mesmerized, not just staring at the judge, but walking around in a stooped posture, images of abject obedience. Once the contestants were lined up across the ring, the judge began to rearrange them, to ask one young woman to move her goat down the row to the left, another to move hers several places to the right. Not until the end of the competition did I comprehend the meaning of the rearranging activity. The judge was placing them in the order of finish.
Then, rather than simply announcing their prizes, she delivered a concise critique of each contestant’s showmanship. Her criteria became clear as she proceeded. She stressed the importance of maintaining constant eye contact with the judge, so as to be ready to respond to any request. She praised several exhibitors for their ability to control the goat when turning and positioning it. Her comments made clear the fundamental task at hand: to show the goat and stay out of the way, keeping the line of sight open between the goat and the judge. The handler’s technique is to be almost invisible, and yet always there, on call, like a good waiter. The judge was kind in her assessments but was also firm, serious, decisive. She demonstrated several key techniques. She was teaching us that goat showing is a discipline.
Showing a goat is such a simple thing, which is precisely what makes it so difficult, so subtle a discipline, like flower arranging, but where the flowers have a mind of their own and may rearrange themselves against your will. You need a good goat on a good day and the kind of discipline that comes from practice, and then maybe the blue ribbon will be yours. I was glad to see no sentimental everyone’s-a-winner crap at the Goat Show. Instead, participants, even the winners, were shown how they could be better. That’s a good thing, right here in northern Indiana.