About midway through a half marathon on Sunday, a new competitor joined the race in Canada’s Newfoundland and Labrador province. He had neither registered nor picked up a bib, but he had grit - he had broken free of his metal collar to run alongside the 255 other racers, who embraced the fresh competition. The new racer: Joshua, a 10-year-old goat who lives on a pumpkin patch.
Heidi Taylor, Joshua’s owner, told The Washington Post that her 150-pound, white and browngoat loves following people and taking short walks. Taylor said when Joshua saw people running by her family’s pumpkin patch in Conception Bay South, he broke free from his collar, which was tied to his pen. Joshua ran nearly three miles before Taylor saw photos on Facebook of him dashing past crosswalks and over the town’s gravel trails.
She tracked him down and drove him to a spot about 800 feet from the finish line, where he trotted the rest of the race. A volunteer then placed a medal around Joshua’s neck, and competitors lined up to take photos with him. Darrin Bent, Conception Bay South’s mayor, said Joshua was "relatively well-known” in the town before the race.
"But he’s hit a new height of fame,” Bent told The Post. Taylor’s family bought Joshua in 2014 from a farm in Green’s Harbour in Newfoundland and Labrador. He has become a staple of the family’s pumpkin patch, where some people visit just to see Joshua, who enjoys snuggling and bleats when he’s lonely - probably to get atten.
