Stolen Therapy Goat 'Peaches' Reunited With Depressed Cow Companion
There was a time when an adorable friendship between two farm animals was a source of unbridled joy and heartwarming images, but as Newshub New Zealand tells us, we live in a time when even such surefire feelgood stories come with a side order of death, depression and crime. Our story starts with Bunter, a pet cow at the Maungaturoto Hotel in New Zealand. Her life was torn to pieces when her friend and fellow cow, Rosie, passed away in 2019. Poor Bunter reportedly spent months in a deep depressive "moo-ed" and was barely eating. Luckily, the hotel's caretaker Joe Rubin had a solution: He had heard that goats were good therapy animals, so in December 2019, he introduced Peaches the goat in Bunter's paddock.
Peaches and Bunter became fast friends and the cow started loving life again, "running around everywhere." Happily ever after, right? Not so much: Soon after she was introduced in Bunter's life, Peaches the goat was mysteriously stolen.
The happy reunion of the therapy goat and the depressed cow
When Peaches disappeared, everyone was initially afraid that the most likely fate of a stolen goat is as an ingredient for curry. Fortunately, our story has a happier end. The hotel's staff decided to turn the case into an episode of CSI: Maungaturoto and started snooping around. It wasn't long before they located a local goat herd that featured an animal that hanged around on its own and was significantly whiter than the others — in fact, it looked a lot like Peaches.
After a quick call to the police and some CCTV footage later, the case of the vanishing goat was solved and Peaches was returned to his friend, just in time for Christmas. Ultimately, the situation was resolved reasonably amicably and no further action needed to be taken. However, the police did take the opportunity to mine the incident for every single dad joke that it was worth. "Police didn't kid around and goat hold of CCTV footage and spoke with a number of people," their statement read. "Bunter the cow, upset at the intrusion, is also understood to hold no beef."