The Goats of Anarchy (GOA) is a wonderful organization run by Leanne Lauricella, who takes in predominantly special needs goats who need extra love and medical attention. She has taken in a number of goats (and one pig and dog) in the last year and the non-profit runs on donations from her followers.
When a goat by the name of Grace arrived at Lauricella’s Enchanted Goat Forest just one week ago, the baby was in poor condition. She was extremely skinny, coughing, wheezing, covered in lice, and she had a cold. She was too scared to look anyone in the eye or let anyone touch her and chose to remain quiet.
“She was so thin, it was only her skin and bone. I had to give her injections for penicillin and there was nothing even to inject into. No meat on her,” Lauricella told The Dodo.
Grace’s fear was caused by the traumatic experience she endured at the hands of high school boys shortly before being transported to GOA. The boys remain unidentified to the wider public, but the outcry following the release of the video revealing what they did to Grace has caused many to spread the word to get them prosecuted. They attend and play football at Fayetteville High School in Arkansas and rented Grace for just $10 as entertainment for their party.
The video shows the boys holding her by the neck while others smash full cans of beer over her head to open them and talking about how they rented her for $10 while she cowered in the corner. The next day at school, the boys bragged about dragging her around by a rope, forcing her to drink beer, and shoving cigarettes down her throat until she started convulsing.
Renting goats to abuse at parties and for hazing has become more popular amongst fraternities and at high schools, and it’s highly disturbing and horrifying. Grace, who is around 4-6 months old, nearly died after living a short, terrifying life simply because a few high schoolers wanted to have fun for a night. What’s worse is that, at first, local officials refused to prosecute the individuals. Would they hesitate to prosecute these teenagers if it was a human baby that had been abused in this way?
There is overwhelming proof linking the students to these crimes, and the owner of GOA is doing everything she can to not only rehabilitate Grace but demand that the boys face legal consequences. She said police refused to go after the boys because the owner said Grace was returned unharmed, though this is false. When she arrived at GOA, a vet found that among her other ailments, she also had scratches on her eyes that caused painful oozing and an upper respiratory infection. A transcript of texts between the teens reveals that Grace was in such bad shape afterwards that they thought she (referred to as “he”) was dead.
When Lauricella heard about Grace and saw the videos, she spent the next few hours gathering all the information she needed, including the contact information for Grace’s owner.
“I called him and said, ‘Hey, I heard you have a goat for sale. It’s the one that’s in the video that’s been circulating,'” Lauricella told The Dodo. “He says, ‘Oh yeah, well, somebody’s coming to look at her.’ I said, ‘How much are you selling her for?’ He said $60. I said, ‘I’ll give you $300.'”
Now that Grace has been at the goat sanctuary for a week, she is a completely different little girl. She just met her goat friends yesterday after spending a week in the house with Lauricella while she recovered and she held her own against the other baby goats. While on the phone with The Dodo, Grace bleated the entire time as she is now a healthy, happy, loud goat.
“She’s like 90 percent [recovered],” Lauricella said. “Her eyes are great, her tail is up, her ears are perky.”
What happened to Grace was horrible, but the fact that it happens to many other goats and some die as a result is even worse. By spreading and learning of Grace’s story, Lauricella has said that she now is aware of a whole new form of goat abuse and taken up arms against it.
If you would like to sign the petition to get Justice for Grace, you can sign here. If you want to donate to Goats of Anarchy and help other goats like Grace, you can donate here.
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