Runaway Pet Goat Wins Medal After Crashing Marathon

A Newfoundland pet goat managed to escape his collar, encountering marathon runners who he joined for about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) before being caught by his owners.

Upon catching up to him, his owners allowed him to finish the race by bringing him down to the finish line, after which he was given a medal.

"They have a resident goat, Mr. Joshua. And when the runners went past the pumpkin patch, the goat decided, 'Well, I'm not staying here, I'm joining them!'" said Mayor Darrin Bent. "And we very quickly put a medal around his neck and he became quite the star. Most people who actually ran the half marathon wanted their picture with Joshua at the finish line."

CBC News reported that the goat, Joshua, crashed the T'Railway Trek Half Marathon hosted by The Town of Conception Bay South on Sunday.

Joshua's owner, Newfoundland resident Heidi Taylor, believes the goat escaped while she was asleep. Taylor learned of Joshua's participation in the marathon from social media. She described opening up Facebook to a stream of posts featuring her goat.

"At one point he was leading the race," Taylor said.

Taylor and her fiancé then used the posts to track and locate Joshua.

"We take Joshua for walks, he listens very well and will follow you," Taylor told The Canadian Press. "So when he's seeing all the people running, he must have thought: 'I'm going to go too."'

Taylor then posted to her business Facebook account, announcing that she had safely retrieved Joshua and thanking the runners who helped return him to her.

"This morning was the T'Railway trek Half Marathon, and part of the run was by the pumpkin patch!! Well Joshua decided he was going with them, broke his collar and off he went. He made it to Tobins lane across from Villa Nova, where a kind person held on to him till we got there," she wrote. "It was an eventful morning that gave everyone a great chuckle!!"

"To have Joshua join in and become a kind of a mascot-star of the event is something we didn't expect and we're just delighted that the G.O.A.T. [Greatest Of All Time] of the race is really a goat," said Brent.