Does everyone remember the common kids game, Marco Polo? One kid is "it," closes their eyes, and blindly tries to find the other kids by following their voice as they respond to "Polo!" to his "Marco!" My brothers and I use to play in the swimming pools of the apartment complexes we lived in or in hotels.
Did you know that goats also play Marco Polo? In the past 9 months I've had ample time to observe goat behavior. The one thing I've noticed most often is that all goats at some point throughout their day of grazing and moving about also make time to play Marco Polo. This is usually accompanied by the participating goats running hither and thither in response to the answers they get from their bleating "Marco!" Mad dashes one way turn into sprints in another direction in a fraction of a second.
My favorite Marco Polo game to watch is when nanny's and kids play. It goes something like this:
Kid: "Mom..."
Nanny: "Maaa...."
Kid: "Mooooommmmm...."
Nanny: "Mmmaaaaaaaaaaa."
Kid: "MMMMOOOOOOOMMMMMM!"
Nanny: "Maaaa! Maaaa! Maaaaa!"
It continues until the game ends with the two happily reunited.
I think goats cheat though as they keep their eyes open while they play. They may be in a larger area than a pool but if I ever peeked during a game of Marco Polo, my brothers were quick to shout, "No cheating!" I guess I'll cut my four-legged forms of entertainment some slack though as it seems like acceptable behavior to all of the other goats and no one ever gets upset over this slight change of rules.
No comments:
Post a Comment