Funny obituary for a goat notes he was notorious ‘jerk’ in remote NC community
Remote eastern North Carolina is rife with eccentric characters and a notorious “wayward goat” named Sonny was among the ones people tried their best to avoid in Currituck County.
Sonny died of old age Tuesday in the Grandy area, and an obituary shared by the Corolla Wild Horse Fund was blunt about how he’ll be remembered.
“He was a pretty big jerk. ... We couldn’t let his passing go unacknowledged,” Corolla Wild Horse Herd Manager Meg Puckett wrote. “He was a part of the family and very much loved. We know he’s still raising hell wherever he is now.”
It’s estimated Sonny was 10 to 15 years old, and his favorite pastime was intentionally running into people. As a result, tennis balls were stuck on the ends of his horns to protect the innocent.
Nobody knows how he got to Grandy. He just showed up one day on someone’s land in 2019 and didn’t leave.
“They didn’t have any luck finding his owners, so they named him Sonny and decided to keep him. They figured out quickly why he was homeless,” Puckett says. “They needed to rehome him.”
Sonny was eventually sent to a farm where the Corolla Wild Horse Fund keeps Outer Banks horses that had to be removed from the wild, and much to everyone’s surprise, even the horses didn’t like him.
“There was some discussion about letting Sonny become a free-range security goat on our property, but ultimately one of our staff took him to her farm and that was the ticket! Sonny found his forever home with another goat named Bernadette,” Puckett says.
“He was happy but still that same old Sonny. You had to carry a rake into the pasture with you because he would hook your leg with those horns or ram you from behind when you weren’t looking. It was all a part of his charm. ... He was a mess, but we loved him.”
Sonny’s obituary had racked up more than 1,800 reactions and comments as of Thursday, Jan. 29, many from people thanking the community for embracing such a rascal.
“Gotta love an honest obituary,” Marie Wilson wrote on the fund’s Facebook page.
“Some of us are just harder to love than others,” Connie Hart Goeden posted.
“Thanks for the warm and terrorizing memories,” Kelly Wilkes said.
“Just like people, some animals are just born to raise hell,” Sheri Parker wrote.
Grandy is about a 195-mile drive northeast from downtown Raleigh.
To learn more about the nonprofit Corolla Wild Horse Fund and its farm, visit www.corollawildhorses.com.
This story was originally published January 29, 2026 at 12:44 PM with the headline "Funny obituary for a goat notes he was notorious ‘jerk’ in remote NC community."