"What do I have to do, buy you a goat?!"

    By the time I was 10 years old I had solidified a very bad, not to mention gross, habit of biting my nails. I bit my nails for as long as I could remember. My parents would always tell me how yucky of a habit it was and no matter how hard I tired, I just couldn't shake it. I didn't think of myself as a nervous kid so I could never quite figure out why I couldn't stop the habit. I tried everything from using "No-Bite" nail polish with the bad taste it makes in your mouth to wearing pretend stick on nails to deter the biting. No matter what I did, nothing seemed to work. 

    So, one day while sitting at the dinner table with my family, there I was, not even conscious of the incessant nail biting, chomping away when my dad said "Alright that's it! What do I have to do to get you to stop biting your nails, buy you a goat or something?" Well... let's just say my 10-year-old animal-loving self perked right up and immediately said "Yes! I will stop biting my nails for a baby goat!" Naturally my dad shook his head and said "Yeah sure okay, you stop biting and I'll get you a goat okay?"

    Now mind you, I had taken this proposition very seriously. I began researching all the types of goats that are out there to decide which one I wanted to get. I even did a book report on goats in school. In my little mind, all that was between me and my adorable future baby goat was stopping my nail biting habit. And as it turned out, stopping the habit was a breeze once I had a real concrete, reward-oriented reason to stop! 

    Behind the scenes, something I didn't learn until many years later, my dad was back-pedaling big time. He felt like his proposition was just kind of a joke and not something that was actually going to happen. So for a while he played along until he realized a couple weeks had gone by and I hadn't bitten a single nail. Then, my mom starts saying things like "You know, if you break a promise to her now at age 10, you could ruin her trust in her for all her teen years! Do you really want that?" 

    Important note: my mother had a goat when she was a little girl and to this day talks about what a wonderful and unique experience it was getting to have a sweet and loving pet goat that no one else had growing up. So, hence her argument of not thinking my dad should break his promise... She really wanted me to have the experience she had as a little girl. Needless to say, her tactic worked and after a couple months of absolutely no nail biting, my parents kept their promise and delivered to me the sweetest, most adorable baby goat. Say hello to little Dixie!