Farm Family Adopts Cross-Species Friends

ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. – Thelma and Louise, meet Sue and Spring.

Hope Street wasn’t surprised when she heard about Thelma and Louise, an inseparable Boer goat and a chocolate Labrador retriever that Bristol, Va., police officers found two weeks ago.

That’s because she’s got a similar set of cross-species BFFs (best friends forever) – a Great Pyrenees named Sue and a Boer goat named Spring – living on her farm outside downtown Elizabethton.

And now, thanks in part to Street’s love for all animals and her husband’s desire to have an adult Lab of his own, Thelma and Louise will spend the rest of their lives in a place where their unique and special relationship is actually quite common and understood.

“They’re going to stay here ’til they croak,” Street’s husband, David Street, said Friday as he introduced Thelma and Louise to Sue, Spring and the other animals living on his farm.

Loretta Smith found Thelma and Louise on April 19 when they ran up to the porch of her Indiana Street home in Bristol to get out of the rain. Smith fed both animals but had to call authorities after Thelma ate her flowers and danced on top of her granddaughter’s Toyota.

Animal Control Officer Lisa Holly answered Smith’s cry for help about 6 p.m. and found Thelma and Louise next to each other on the porch.

Because the city’s Animal Control Department does not work with goats, Holly said, she tried to take Louise, the chocolate Lab, to an animal shelter without her friend.

The plan failed.

Holly said Thelma went nuts the moment she tried taking Louise away from her. Bleating loudly, the goat chased after them and even jumped at Holly’s truck to be with Louise.

Holly relented and took Thelma and Louise to the Jones Animal Hospital together. The two shared a large pen at the hospital for 10 days until police issued their own plea for help.

“It is apparent that separation of the two will be detrimental,” police Capt. Charles Jones wrote in a news statement he sent out Wednesday. 

Jones’ statement let the public know where Thelma and Louise were staying and expressed his department’s desire to adopt out the two animals together because of their unique bond.

The phones at Jones Animal Hospital were ringing off the hook from around the country. But the Streets were the first to get their deposits in. They took the two animals home Friday afternoon.

“We adopted the dog and got the goat for free,” David Street said of his two newest pets. “I’ve always wanted a Lab, but I didn’t want to go through the pup stage.”

The Streets and their two sons, ages 9 and 12, live on a 40-acre plot they call Link Valley Farm, where they keep 14 Boer goats, four Great Pyrenees and 14 cows.

Spring was born this year on the first day of spring, Hope Street said. Sue, now 7 months old, watched the birth and has been at her friend’s side ever since.

Hope Street said she and her husband tried splitting the two, but their efforts went about as well as the ones Holly employed.

They’d put the two on opposite sides of a fence, Hope Street said, but the dog jumped over it. They tried putting Sue in a barn to keep her away from the goats, she said, but the dog just dug a hole under one of its walls and crawled her way out to be next to her friend.

Great Pyrenees are bred to guard livestock like goats, Hope Street said, so the other dogs did nothing to split the pair up because they thought Sue was just doing her job.

Spring’s mother did nothing to protect her baby from the 90-pound Sue, she said, because she is rather inattentive to her child’s needs and prefers to let her fend for herself.

“We could not keep [Sue] away from that one little baby,” she said. “I don’t know if she sensed its momma wasn’t a very good momma or if it was the first baby goat she’d seen.”

The Streets almost immediately noticed a similar bond between Thelma and Louise.

Because Louise came down with a case of kennel cough during her exploits, she’s being kept away from the other animals on the farm until she gets better in a few weeks.

But Thelma had a chance to play with the other goats, David Street said. She behaved just like a normal goat, he said, until she noticed Louise was not right by her side.

“When [Thelma] looks up and [Louise] isn’t around, she’s like ‘eeehh, eeehh, eeehh,’ ” he said, adding Thelma ran up and down the fence until she was reunited with her friend.

Hope Street said she thinks that like Sue and Spring, the bond between Thelma and Louise might be a maternal one because it looks like the dog was pregnant not long ago.

“It makes you wonder if maybe she lost her pups and adopted the goat, or something,” she said.

| (276) 645-2518