We subject our pets to an awful lot of medical procedures without giving them a second thought. Most of them—like spaying and neutering—benefit both the animal’s health and the owner’s wallet. However, some of these practices are only meant for humans’ convenience—and they’re often cruel to the animals themselves.
Not long ago, a woman paid for her baby goat, Lawson, to undergo a surgery that’s become common practice among goat owners. Unfortunately, she was horrified by what had been done to Lawson, and she knew she had to find a way to right what was wrong…
As pet owners, we have a responsibility to act in our animals’ best interests. Unfortunately, not everyone understands this duty—and the poor pet is usually the one who suffers the consequences. One woman with minimal experience taking care of goats experienced that firsthand recently when she purchased a baby goat named Lawson.
The little guy weighed just two pounds. One day, the woman brought Lawson to the veterinarian for a simple check-up. Though he was perfectly healthy, the veterinarian offered a strange suggestion to Lawson’s owner.
The veterinarian suggested that the woman have her goat “disbudded.” The procedure would remove Lawson’s horns by taking a hot iron to them. To keep Lawson still, he’d be trapped in a small box—similar to the one in this photograph—while the surgery was performed.
As cruel as the process sounded, the veterinarian assured the goat owner that it was fairly common: dairy farmers frequently had their goats disbudded to prevent them from getting caught in fences or hurting their pen mates.
Lawson’s owner later described the veterinarian as pushy in insisting that she have Lawson disbudded. As she had little experience taking care of goats, she consented to the procedure, thinking it was a necessity. Why else would the veterinarian suggest it?
Once the procedure was done, the veterinarian brought Lawson out to his owner. Where his horns should have been were two charred and hideous rings. Lawson’s owner was absolutely horrified.
She was so horrified and disgusted by Lawson’s new look that she actually vomited at the sight of him! “I’m supposed to be his protector,” she said. “But I didn’t know.” She felt she’d let her baby goat down.
Lawson’s owner made a gut-wrenchingly difficult decision: she gave up Lawson to someone more wise in the way of goats. She felt she owed the kid a proper owner who understood his needs. So Lawson fell into the care of Leanne Lauricella (pictured).
Leanne was no stranger to goats. On her farm in New Jersey, she housed over 40 special-needs goats. She also ran a popular Instagram channel called Goats of Anarchy that chronicled all her residents’ misadventures.
Like Lawson’s previous owner, when Leanne saw the baby goat’s disbudding marks, she felt sick—mostly because she knew the truth behind disbudding. “It’s an extremely hot iron,” she said of the surgery. “It’s mutilation and it’s torture.”
After taking in the goat, “I started to think, ‘He’s not going to have any cute baby pictures,’” Leanne said. “So I said, ‘OK, I’m going to get him some cute little hats, so he has some nice baby pictures, and we don’t have to focus on that.’”
And that was how Lawson got his groove back. Still marred by the horrendous surgery, Lawson wore tiny hats provided by Leanne—and he became an instant sensation on the Goats of Anarchy Instagram channel!
When he wasn’t sporting cool hats, Lawson fit right in at Leanne’s goat sanctuary. He wore onesies and made friends with other goats—a chance he may have never had if he’d stayed with his original owner.
Leanne, meanwhile, fell in love with her new goat. She saw the bond between a goat and a human as no different than that between a human and a dog, and she obsessed over Lawson’s sweet nature and innocent gaze.
Leanne often dressed her new goat buddy in seasonal attire. She doted on him endlessly, and Lawson’s fashion sense started to really take flight. With hats like these, who needed horns?
Lawson lived the goat equivalent of a rags to riches story. He went from a well-intentioned but helpless owner who had his horns burned off to a life of hats, friends, and plush linen beds! Leanne wanted to make up for his moment of suffering.
“I was so angry and upset,” Leanne said, still bothered by what the veterinarian had convinced Lawson’s owner to do. “It’s just a sweet little innocent baby. How could they think of doing anything besides kissing that head?”
Leanne offered a warning to other goat owners who might be considering disbudding: “Goat horns are full of blood vessels, and that’s what helps them regulate their body temperature,” she said. “When you take those away, you’re messing with their bodies.”
“They love them—it’s part of being a goat,” she continued. “I feel so sorry for the goats of mine who don’t have them.” Perhaps it was that sorrow that drove Leanne to give a goat like Lawson the best life possible.
Despite facing a few other medical problems—for instance, Lawson ended up needing surgery that landed him a little goat wheelchair—Lawson never failed to smile for the cameras whenever he wore a hat!
It’s unfortunate that Lawson’s original owner was pressured into such a heinous surgery for her baby goat. But after all that suffering, he got to live out the rest of his days as a happy goat on Leanne’s farm!
Share this little goat’s story with your friends!