An elderly goat does not need a sitter who works fast. She needs one who understands that her slow pace is her normal, that she rises in her own time after resting, and that she must never be hurried along a track, chased into a corner, or pulled by the collar to speed her up. A rushed old goat panics, loses her footing, and can go off her feed for the rest of the day, so the first line of any briefing is patience: walk at her speed, let her choose when to get up, and give her time to reach the gate, the water, and her shelter on her own legs.
The Four Checks, and Her Normal
The sitter works through the same four checks on every visit — her appetite, the water she has taken, her droppings, and her breathing at rest. Appetite means watching her actually eat, not just seeing feed put down, because an old goat can stand over hay she is no longer chewing well. Water means noting whether the bucket level has dropped since the last visit and whether she drinks when it is refreshed. Droppings should look like her usual firm pellets; loose, scant, or absent droppings are a change worth reporting the same day. Breathing at rest should be quiet and even, with no effort in her flanks and no coughing fits when she moves. For each check, tell the sitter what normal looks like for her in plain words, because her baseline is slower, thinner, and sleepier than a young goat's, and a stranger will otherwise either panic over ordinary age or miss a real change hiding inside it.
Feed in Her Familiar Measures
Write her feed down in the measures the yard already uses, the same scoop, the same bucket, the same handful of hay, rather than weights she has never been fed by. An elderly goat eats slowly and can be pushed aside even by one younger companion, so the sitter should feed her apart or stand with her until she has finished, and check that she is chewing comfortably rather than dropping half-chewed mouthfuls. Note where her water sits, which shelter corner she chooses, and any small habits that matter to her, such as waiting by a particular gate or refusing feed that has been rained on. Small details like these are what keep her eating, drinking, and resting normally while her owner is away.
Medicines and When to Ring
Her medicines are given with their timing written exactly as the vet directed, and that written routine is the sitter's script: the sitter follows it line by line, invents nothing, and never adjusts, skips, or substitutes anything because she seemed better or worse that morning. Any question about a medicine goes to the owner or the vet, never to guesswork at the feed bin. Finish the briefing with the call-the-owner signs, written out where the sitter will see them: not rising when she usually would, refusing feed she normally takes, shivering despite dry shelter, standing apart from her companions, or breathing that looks labored at rest. Put the numbers to use beside those signs, the owner's mobile first, then the vet's, so nobody hunts for a phone number in a worried moment. Walk one full round together before the trip, morning or evening, so the sitter has seen her pace, her checks, and her feed done once for real.
All of that briefing, her measures, her medicine timing, her normal signs, and the numbers, belongs in one packet, the Pet Passport packet, drawn from her records rather than scattered across sticky notes. Kept current, the Pet Passport briefing on KinsLe gives whoever covers her yard days a calm, exact script.