An unlikely friendship is shaping up in B.C.’s Kootenay region that might just be the greatest of all time.
The odd couple? A goat named Arret that rides a horse named Bouge. And if you’re the type that needs to see it to believe it, there is plenty of video.
The animals belong to Aimee Kootnikoff, who operates the Kootenay Acres farm in Krestova, near Nelson, who said the strange behaviour began a few months ago.
“I just went outside to let my dogs out for a bathroom break, and I looked in the horse pen and Arret was on Bouche’s back. Just standing there really, just hanging out,” she told Global News.
Kootnikoff said she figured the strange sight was a “once in a lifetime” thing and was surprised when she saw the two at it again the following day.
“He went up there pretty much every day after that, he was just hanging out on his back, pawing at his back a little bit; mostly just hanging out or jumping on and off, onto the hay bale,” she said.
“He’s our little trouble maker, he likes to barge his way into our house, jump on our kitchen counters, if a car door is open or the trunk is open, he makes sure he jumps into the vehicle, he’s definitely all over everything, so it’s very fitting he would make his way onto the back of a horse.”
Kootnikoff is new to farming — and to goats — but said she grew up around horses.
She said the two types of animals are often placed together as companion animals, but hasn’t heard of a goat taking up an equestrian hobby before.
While Bouche and Arret appear to have become fast friends, that relationship hasn’t extended to the other horses on the farm.
Kootnikoff said the adventurous goat recently tried to pull a similar maneuver with another horse named Rio, but was quickly rebuffed.
“He went for a running leap,” she said. “The horse went one way and the goat went the other. It did not last one second, if even that.”