Goats aren’t Ellen Felsenthal’s favorite animal—that would be cats—but they are an awfully big part of her life. Felsenthal is the founder, director, and animal caretaker at the New Moon Farm Goat Rescue & Sanctuary, a nonprofit based in Arlington that takes in abandoned or neglected goats, nurses them back to health, and then re-homes them. And there are, it turns out, plenty of goats needing to be rescued in the Puget Sound area: Since New Moon’s founding 20 years ago, Felsenthal and her network of volunteers have rescued more than 1,500 goats.
“They end up with us for all the same reasons that cats and dogs end up in shelters,” Felsenthal said. “People get them and then change their minds, or they are moving and they can’t take them, or they got them for the kids and the kids aren’t taking care of them. We get a lot that are picked up by animal control for neglect.” Before New Moon opened, Felsenthal said, unwanted goats frequently ended up being eaten.
