The Infamous Duo...

Justin Burnett / The Whidbey Examiner
Despite their differences, Lily, a six-month-old Labrador retriever, and Tipper, a three-year-old Pygmy goat, are the best of friends. The two occasionally get into trouble however, as they seem to enjoy visiting their neighbors.


Justin Burnett / The Whidbey Examiner
Lily chases her best bud Tipper around the yard of their Morris Road home.

Unusual friendship is a recipe for neighborhood misadventures

By Justin Burnett
Examiner Staff Writer

Ever since Lily came into the picture, Tipper's life just hasn't been the same. Not only does she have a new best friend, but she also seems to end up in a whole lot more trouble than she used to.

Perhaps it's because Lily is a six-month-old Labrador that's as curious and rambunctious as they get. Or perhaps it's because three-year-old Tipper sometimes forgets she is a Pygmy goat.

"Tipper thinks she's a dog," said owner Kelly Smith, who lives near Coupeville. "She's supposed to be a fainting goat, but nothing really scares her. She even walks on a leash."

And even though Lily tends to be the ringleader, Tipper isn't exactly innocent, Smith said with a laugh. Like most Pygmy goats, she has a troublemaking streak of her own and it doesn't take much for the unlikely duo to end up in a misadventure like they did a few weeks ago.

For reasons that are still unclear, early one Sunday morning the two apparently decided against playing their favorite games of 'dog chases goat' and 'goat rams the dog.' Instead, they opted to go on a little expedition beyond the boundaries of their Morris Road home.

"They just decided they wanted to go off an adventure," Smith said.

What they did or where went over the next few hours, only Lily and Tipper know for sure. What is known where they ended up later that afternoon - about a quarter mile away at the home of Dave Fish and Karen Fletcher.

Fletcher said she was relaxing inside the house when one of her granddaughters came running in with an odd bit of news: There was a goat and a dog coming over for a visit! But sure enough, when she went outside to take a look, there were Lily and Tipper, walking confidently down Harrington Road.

"There they were, both just walking along," Fletcher said.

Lily and Tipper are some of the friendliest animals around, so it didn't take long for Fletcher's granddaughters, 12-year-old twins Cassidy and Chandler Fish, to fall hopelessly in love with them.

"The goat thinks she's a dog and the dog thinks she's a goat," Fletcher said. "It's really adorable."

When Fletcher decided to take Lily to the nearby Whidbey Animals Improvement Foundation shelter to see if she had an imbedded electronic identification ship, Tipper baaaaaaed her objections at being left behind.

"I wasn't going to put a goat in my car," Fletcher said, shaking her head.

Lily wasn't gone long, however, as she did not have an identification chip. Realizing both animals would need to spend the night, and feeling it wouldn't be right to tie them up, a makeshift enclosure was set up in Fletcher's yard.

Meanwhile, Smith and his girlfriend Rachel Warner had been frantically searching the neighborhood for the odd couple. They were happily reunited the next day after Fletcher got a call from the county, informing her of Lily and Tipper's real owners.

"Lily has run off before and always come back," Warner said. "But that was the first time the goat took off, and it scared me."

Lark Gustafson, a veterinarian at Penn Cove Veterinary Clinic, said the two adventurers shouldn't be judged too harshly. They are just doing what comes naturally. Lily has an instinct to roam, and Tipper is a herd animal whose instinctively stays with her companion. Even though under other circumstances they might consider each other predator and prey, it's not all that uncommon for domesticated animals to form such unlikely friendships.

"You see that from time to time," Gustafson said.

But Tipper the pygmy goat may be part canine after all. One week after her adventure with Lily, she was back at Fletcher's house for another visit, and this time she was all by herself.

"We took the dogs out, and she decided she wanted to go out, too," Smith said.



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