CAROLINE COUNTY, Md. - A Caroline County family is searching for five goats that mysteriously disappeared from their property Saturday evening.
Tiffany Collins Cummings says the goats — Daisy, Moose, George, Henry and Moo, also known as Bob — had never wandered away from the farm before.
Cummings says a pet sitter went outside around 7:30 p.m. Saturday to put the goats in their pen for the night, only to discover they were gone.
Security camera footage from earlier that evening shows the goats grazing in the front yard. A gray pickup truck passes by, and several minutes later, the goats begin slowly walking toward the entrance of the driveway.
Cummings says the goats then disappeared from view.
"And then all of a sudden, they just slowly trot down the driveway and leave," Cummings said. "And they have never, ever, ever done that before at all."
Cummings says the animals are extremely friendly and closely bonded with her family. They have taken care of the goats since June.
"They don't leave," she said. "I walk out that house there. They come right up to me like dogs. They want pets. They want treats."
She says the goats know their names, wear collars with identification tags and her phone number, and have become a familiar part of the family's daily routine.
Daisy, one of the younger goats, would even come inside the house, Cummings said, getting on the couch and lying down like a dog.
"They're very, very friendly. They're very smart," Cummings said.
Cummings says the goats were also comfortable around strangers. At her 40th birthday party, she says the animals mingled with roughly 25 to 30 guests, allowing people to pet them and take photos.
The family reported the goats missing to police and contacted Caroline County Animal Services. Flyers with photos of the animals have also been posted around the area, and people have been searching nearby properties and wooded areas.
A $1,000 reward is being offered for the goats if they are found alive.
Courtesy: Tiffany Collins Cummings
Cummings says she isn't sure whether the goats wandered away on their own or were taken. However, no one has reported seeing them since Saturday.
The property includes roughly 23 acres, with extensive woods and farmland surrounding it. Cummings says the landscape makes the search challenging, but she believes the goats could still be somewhere nearby if they wandered off.
She says anyone who spots one of the goats should keep an eye out for the others, since they typically travel together as a herd.
One of her neighbors, Gunner McFayden, says the amount of wooded land in the area makes it difficult to search for the animals.
"It's just a lot of woods, a lot of wooded area," McFayden said. "So it is a little harder to, I guess, keep an eye out and try to find them."
For her family, she says the search is about more than finding livestock.
"I mean, they're family, this is — they're like lost dogs at this point," Cummings said.
Anyone who sees the goats or has information about their whereabouts is asked to contact Cummings using the information provided on the missing-goat flyers.
