This story begins with a lost baby goat;

Short before nightfall all of the goats return from grazing and make their way back to their sleeping camp, but on this night one baby goat (who managed to escape the nursery to go graze with its mother) did not find its way back. So off I went tracking through the farm to try and find the lost baby before any predators does.

But the search soon made me realize that it would have been a good time to have taken my camera with me. so in stead of using photos taken of events, I will be making use of photos that I have taken on other occasions.

As I was walking through the dense bushes, close to where the goats had been grazing earlier, I hear a sudden rustling in the bushes nearby followed by a cold hissing sound, my puppy, a young Jack Russel who had accompanied me on the search jolted off to investigate, I was trying to call him back while trying to identify the source of what we had just heard, but his curiosity seemed to get the best of him in that moment, and my calls for him fell on deaf ears. The next moment, I saw a huge reptile head emerge from the knee high grass that was surrounding us, My initial thought was that it was a python, but as the head raised higher and higher I realized that I was in fact facing a 2 meter rock monitor. I urgently called for the puppy to move away, but with his neck hair raised and the most serious growl you can expect from a puppy, he decided that standing his ground was the best course of action. I knew that despite his illusion of being able to take this enormous lizard down, that the puppy stood absolutely no chance, and I also knew that I would have to intervene somehow.

I weighed up my options and came to the conclusion that there was not much that I could do without putting myself in danger, and at the same time I could simply not just stand there watching this beast kill my puppy. So I charged in, hands in the air, making as much noise as possible trying to startle the monitor, swept the puppy up and turned to get away, but the monitor had also decided to re-position itself, and my plan, well, wasn't going according to plan.

The monitor swiped at me with his muscular tail, now to give you an idea, these creatures are fully capable and known for breaking the legs of a cow clean off, so I didn't really want to find out what damage it would be able to do to me. Luckily I managed to jump over the swiping tail while avoiding the head (the other dangerous part of this cold blooded aggressor) and made my way far enough to watch this critter from safety as it disappeared back into the thick brush.

I looked down to the puppy, still safely cradled in my arms, and in-between my short fast breaths I whispered "Stupid Puppy" and I put him down, encouraging him to stay close, he did try to veer off once or twice into the direction where he first spotted the monitor but at least this time he listened when I called him back.

I stood still for a moment trying to get my heart out of my throat, but I knew that the sun would not extend its stay on my account and I still had a baby goat to find.

So off we went to continue our search.

Puppy's job was to help me look for the baby goat so that we can get him safely back to the camp and his mother, but the only thing that the puppy was flushing out was rabbits, which he would then playfully chase around for a little bit before proudly moving back to my side.

Then I noticed a sudden break in the sunlight and that made me look up, it was a gorgeous eagle flying reasonably low overhead, and I found myself thinking wow Simply WOW. The next moment this eagle swooped down, clearly goal driven, or rather meal driven, and while I was trying to figure out what he was after, my skin went cold and I tough to myself, 'could it be that he is after the baby goat?', as I increased my pace and moved in the direction that I saw the eagle dive into, I heard a rustle, a desperate cry, and then silence, my jog turned into a run accompanied by yells and screams in order to chase the bird off, and it worked, the eagle flew up and sat on an overhead branch, his beak and talons covered with blood, looking down at his kill.

As I reached the place of his kill though, I exhaled a sigh of relief - the eagle had gone after a lone guinea fowl and not the baby goat. Phew. So I left the eagle to get back to his kill, and carried on walking.

At this stage it was starting to get late, the sun was going down at a steady pace - and still no baby goat!

I was getting a bit discouraged with our search, and just then puppy jolted forward as he had done numerous times when he got the scent of a rabbit, at first I did not make much of it, until I heard a desperate baby goat bleat, puppy finally did something right he found the goat!

The problem was... he found the goat, with his teeth - and he was not planning on letting go - so there I was arms up in the air yet again running after the baby goat with the puppy firmly attached to it's haunches in a 'so proud of the rabbit I just caught' kinda way, while he was being dragged along by the goat.

I ran until I was close enough, and then I tackled down the goat and the dog and got the two of them separated. Puppy got a very well deserved and needed hiding, "goats are not food, well, not yours at least" I said to the puppy reassuringly, convinced that he understands 'people talk' then I picked up the lamb and off we went in a homewards direction.

With the lamb safely back at mom in the sleeping camp I could finally go home and kick off my boots - what a day!

And just in case you are wondering - YES, this is a true story! Just another day on the farm...