Animals Want to Enjoy Public Transportation too

It has become clear to me, partly through an incident involving two goats, that we are depriving many animals of something they would surely enjoy: public transportation.

Like humans, animals love traveling. They love looking around at the wonders of the world, and there’s no better way to do this than through the windows of a bus or train. They also love going to new places, instead of being stuck in one place, looking at the same sights and smelling the same humans.

If you don’t believe me, then how do you explain why two billy goats recently boarded a bus in Portland, Oregon?

Security camera footage shows the two juvenile goats entering the bus just as the automatic doors were about to close. They walked down the aisle and looked around, before being shooed off by passengers.

If the goats had a lawyer, they would undoubtedly be filing a lawsuit for discrimination. The driver, after all, didn’t even ask them for their passes. But perhaps, as New York Times reporter Neil Vigdor suggested, the driver made the same assumption that the goats did: “kids ride free.”

Perhaps if the goats had walked on their hind legs, they would have been allowed to ride the bus. Perhaps if they had sat quietly in the back of the bus, looking at their phones, no one would have complained.

The two goats, named Billy the Kid and Billy the Goat, had apparently escaped from their enclosure about two blocks from the bus stop. Following their attempted bus ride, a neighbour led them back to their owner, Lrae Anderson. Vigdor interviewed Anderson for his well-researched article in The Times, but he didn’t interview the goats, leaving that task to me.

Me: “Where were you planning to go?”

Billy the Kid: “On vacation. Our owner goes on vacation and leaves us behind. We wanted to return the favor.”

Billy the Goat: “Make him see how it feels to not be invited.”

Me: “Do you think you’re the first goats to board a public bus in America?”

Billy the Kid: “Oh no, LeBron once did it.”

Billy the Goat: “Many times. He’s good at traveling.”

Me: “But he’s not a true goat.”

Billy the Kid: “Oh, you’re a Jordan fan, are you? LeBron won championships on three teams!”

Billy the Goat: “And he’s the NBA’s all-time scorer!”

Me: “I never thought I’d be debating the GOAT with a pair of goats.”

The goats’ owner Anderson expressed surprise that they had crossed a busy street to board the bus. “They got on like they’ve done it before,” he told The Times.

Indeed, the video shows the goats boarding the bus as naturally as a regular bus passenger, which only proves my point that animals have a strong affinity for public transportation and we should try our best to accommodate them. We should have signs on buses and trains that say: “All animals that can fit through the doors are welcome to ride, except for snakes.”

Trains should have special compartments for animals, with signs such as these: “Cow compartment,” “Donkeys only,” and “Reserved for cougars (must have tails).”

You may be wondering why I’m discriminating against snakes. Well, snakes do not need special accommodations. They already travel extensively on public transportation in many countries. Unlike goats, snakes know better than to enter vehicles through doors. They climb aboard through the undercarriage, squeezing themselves into any opening.

A study by biologist Dikansh Parmar and his colleagues suggests that king cobras have dispersed themselves around the Indian state of Goa partly by traveling on trains. The researchers, who published their study in the journal Biotropica, consider this “accidental transport on trains,” because the snakes probably did not intend to do any traveling, as evidenced by the fact that they did not pack a suitcase. Not even an overnight bag. The snakes, apparently, were just looking for food and shelter, when the “building” they had entered suddenly started moving.

But even if snakes do not travel around deliberately, they do not need any help.

The same is true of dogs, who do a lot of traveling, mostly with their owners. Small dogs are especially lucky in this regard, because their owners can sneak them onto buses and trains without anyone noticing (don’t panic if the bulge under the shirt growls at you).

If you happen to see a dog on a bus or train, it will probably be showing more interest in its surroundings than a typical human. A typical human doesn’t look around much, but instead looks at a phone, perhaps watching an amusing video of two goats trying to catch a ride.