A goat will put its mouth on your homework, your fence post, and the "Beware of Dog" sign — and eat none of them. Tastes it, decides, moves on. The tin-can thing is a lie people tell because they can't tell curiosity from appetite. A goat is a browser, not a garbage disposal. It wants the tender top of things, it won't touch food that's been walked on, and it takes your gate apart not from hunger but because the gate was a claim about where it belongs.

One stomach, four chambers, zero patience for boundaries someone else decided on.

The eyes give it away — rectangular pupils, better than 300 degrees of vision, the whole horizon without turning its head. Built to find the exit before anyone announces there's a problem. Wild goats stand on the vertical face of an Italian dam to lick salt off the stone. Domestic ones climb Moroccan argan trees like that's normal for a hooved animal. Nobody told them the surface was off limits, or somebody did and it registered as a suggestion.

The ancient Hebrews loaded one goat with the whole village's sins and walked it into the wilderness. Problem solved — for the village. That's where "scapegoat" comes from, and the animal picked to carry what nobody else would was the one everyone assumed could take it. Thor's chariot ran on two goats, butchered for dinner every night and back on their hooves by morning. The catch people skip: the bones had to stay whole. Someone cracked one for the marrow and the goat came back lame. You can survive the night and still be carrying it.

Which makes the modern usage the best rebrand in the animal kingdom. Same animal, same four letters: GOAT - Greatest Of All Time. Took a few thousand years, but the one holding the blame ended up holding the title.