A goat of many colours

One of the few times I can recall laughing out loud at an actual joke was when somebody somewhere said, “The first time I suspected I might be dyslexic was when I went to a toga party dressed as a goat.” It still makes me chuckle now.

Apart from providing great comedy material, goats are fascinating animals in their own right and currently feature pretty heavily in the news around these parts. The town of Casabermeja has just played host to its seventeenth Malaga goat fair, celebrating all things caprine. Meanwhile, about an hour down the road, in Canillas de Aceituno, goats can presently be seen making their way down to the town from the mountains as September cools the evening air and offers the perfect temperature for a twilight foray in search of succulent vegetation.

All of this provides the perfect opportunity to offer up some handy goat facts, given that they might well come up in conversation and it's always impressive to look knowledgeable about random stuff.

First up, goats have got rectangular pupils in their eyes which, according to the experts, help to facilitate panoramic vision and to filter out light glare. I suspect, in reality, they just watched too much television when they were kids.

If the square eyes thing wasn't enough to make a potential mate hesitate, having no top teeth would surely tip the scales. Goats have an upper dental pad instead of teeth but very sharp bottom ones which they use to gnash their victuals into submission. I had a great uncle who used to do much the same thing.

Fascinatingly, goats also have regional accents. Experts have noted that animals from different herds use distinct tones and inflections when communicating with each other although rumours that Scottish goats are unintelligible to all the others are, as yet, unproven.

Next, despite having cloven hooves (never a good start, let's face it), goats can climb impossibly high trees in order to access the juiciest foliage. It's something to do with a hard outer edge and softer interior which, in theory, should mean that a sturdy pair of Crocs would also do the trick. Rather you than me.

Finally, and most importantly, goats have a very high level of emotional intelligence. One study was undertaken in which they were presented with photographs of humans with happy, neutral and angry faces and the animals were unequivocally drawn to the images of the smiling people.

However, nobody's been able to prove definitively whether they found the joke about the toga funny or not.

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