Trail Class: The Obstacle Course

Over the fake river and through the hay twine; it’s a trail class for goats!

August 31, 2025Shannon HasseyKids' Corner, Ownership

Reading Time: 9 minutes

All of us who own goats know how intelligent, athletic, and sure-footed they are. We also know how nervous, opinionated, and downright stubborn they can be! Combine all these elements, and you have the makings of a very entertaining spectacle at your local county fair: A trail class or goat obstacle course!

Competitors and audiences alike love a good goat obstacle course challenge, whether it’s an entertaining diversion from traditional classes or an intense competitive culmination of a 4-H pack goat project. Trail class courses can be simple or fancy, easy or difficult. I once designed a basic obstacle course in 20 minutes using various items found around a show barn; I’ve designed several fancy trail class courses using obstacles carefully planned and purpose-built; and I’ve designed courses in the backcountry using natural features of the landscape. The most important things to keep in mind when designing a trial class are:

Safety
The age and skill level of the goats and handlers
Fun

Number 3 depends largely on numbers 1 and 2.

As always, safety first! Any obstacle that people and goats will stand on must be sturdy enough to support their combined weight and steady enough that it won’t tip. Jumps should fall down easily when hit. Duck-under obstacles should be either lightweight or designed to prevent falling. Surfaces must be non-slip and free of gaps that can trap feet, and there should be no nails or screws sticking out. Make sure to test all of your obstacles yourself and then with a goat before allowing anyone to compete on them. A hay bale pyramid may look sturdy enough to climb, but is it? A dog agility obstacle may seem suitable, but what if someone brings a 200-pound wether? Is your duck-under obstacle safe if a goat catches its crossbuck saddle on it? For safety reasons, always allow competitors to use leashes, and encourage the use of halters on extra-large or horned goats.

Next, make sure your trail class is suitable for the participants. One of the common pitfalls when designing a course is a lack of consideration for the age and skill level of the competitors (both human and caprine). When I design a course for a 4-H working goat trail class or a pack-goat-specific event, the obstacles are more challenging than those presented at an “obstacle fun course” at the county fair. Judging these two events is different as well, and much more leniency is in order at a “fun show trail class,” where you might even allow costumes to factor into the scoring.

A low bridge is a fun obstacle for any level course, and almost every goat is good at it! Remove the straw bales, and this bridge would become a teeter-totter for more advanced classes. However, note the lack of traction strips. That is probably why we opted to use it as a bridge!

Test your obstacles on the types of goats that’ll be competing at your event. For example, if your event is set up as a special diversion at a dairy goat show, make sure to test it using an older matron with an udder and not just with a spry dry yearling!

If you’re designing a trail class for pack wethers, make sure your obstacles are built for really big goats with wide horns. A weave-pole obstacle that works for disbudded goats may be too narrow for a wether with a 2-foot horn span. On the other hand, if you design a course for large goats, make sure smaller goats can still access obstacles by making them adjustable or providing ramps or steps. A show with multiple ages and sizes of goats requires more planning in order to properly accommodate all of them.

While it’s tempting to make your obstacles really challenging for the audience’s amusement, bear in mind that excess difficulty makes the class take too long, and it’s unfair to both the goats and their handlers. A classic example is the water obstacle. For goats, a puddle might as well be a pool of acid, and, while it’s amusing to watch a series of children get soaked, muddied, and knocked down in their vain attempts to drag protesting goats into the water, it’s not really fair to the kids or the goats. A trained pack goat should be expected to cross water without balking, but for any other type of goat, it’s an unfair ask.

Similarly, a really high teeter-totter is fun to watch, but if a goat has never faced a teeter-totter before the show, it might spook and knock down its handler if the “tip” is too dramatic. Save the fancy obstacles for working goat classes where the goats are purpose-trained for the task. It’s okay to challenge goats and their handlers, but not to the point where success is beyond their grasp. These aren’t circus performers!

This is a multi-stage obstacle for an advanced pack goat class and has been made to look like a creek with logs in it. The catch is that there is real water at the end! When designing a course for trained pack goats, you must put more thought and effort into creating unique and interesting obstacles. The competitors have spent a lot of time training their goats, so it is important to make their efforts pay off by providing an engaging and aesthetically pleasing course that mimics some of the challenges they may face on the trail.

Adding a stump to the middle of a water pool makes the obstacle accessible for low-level working goat classes and even for “fun” classes because the goat can cross water without getting its feet wet.

Finally, create a lower age limit for the goats. I’ve often seen babies “compete” in obstacle classes, but it’s not fair to the baby goats or to competitors with older goats. Babies can be picked up, dragged without resistance, or led with a bottle, doing every obstacle perfectly but without any actual training. It’s cruel to allow babies to be dragged over obstacles, and it’s unfair to other competitors if babies are picked up or bribed through the course. I set a minimum age of 6 months. By 6 months old, goats are usually too big to pick up or drag without resistance, and they’re fully weaned. They’re also old enough to have had some proper training, which is really what a trail class is about.

It takes the exact same skill to navigate this narrow bridge, whether it is 6 inches off the ground or 6 feet, so keep it low.

Here’s what a “fun trail class” at a goat show might look like:

Walk over a tarp.
Leap over a low jump.
Stand on a stanchion for 5 seconds.
Pivot inside a 3-foot diameter circle or box.
Trot from cone A to cone B.
Weave through 4 cones.
Walk the long way down a board.
Stand still while the handler picks up a front foot.
Walk past a bucket of alfalfa pellets/grain/goat treats without stealing.
Walk under a curtain of hay strings or strips of tarp.

As you can see, this course can be set up using items found at any goat show. Some “obstacles” don’t require any materials except some kind of marker, but the requirements (such as picking up a foot or asking for a trot) demonstrate the owner’s skill and the goat’s obedience (or lack thereof!). The easiest way to judge a fun show trail class is to time it. Incomplete or skipped obstacles incur significant time penalties. This encourages your competitors to hustle through and attempt every obstacle, but it avoids the necessity of judging their performance as long as the obstacles are completed. Speed events are also more fun for the audience.

This is a fun and practical obstacle for any type of course. The goat must walk carefully through the “campsite” without knocking over the chairs or stepping on objects placed on the ground. To make this more interesting, we placed marshmallows, potato chips, alfalfa pellets, and other tempting items in the camp chairs. The goats had to walk past these tasty treats without stealing!

This “ground tie” obstacle is geared toward trained working goats. The goat is “parked” with his front feet in the hoop, and his leash is dropped while the handler walks around a cone.

Getting a goat to walk from one stump to another without touching the ground is harder than it looks!

In pack goat classes, we have goats pull the sled from the saddle. However, it can also be added to “fun” courses by having the person pull it while leading the goat. Make sure the object is lightweight enough for children or young goats to pull.

If you are designing a course for a working pack goat trail class, the obstacles should be more sophisticated and the course more carefully planned. Judging is more serious, and obstacles should be judged individually, with comments added to the scorecard. Time is still a factor (generally, a goat is given 30 seconds to begin an obstacle before being asked to move on), and if two goats have matching scores, the one with the faster time wins. However, the competition is judged on skill more than speed, and the emphasis is on training because these competitors should’ve been working with their goats well in advance of the show. At this type of competition, difficult obstacles such as crossing water and jumping into a truck can be expected. In this context, difficult obstacles create a fun challenge for the competitors and an entertaining spectacle for the audience.

This is a fabulous example of a well-trained pack goat negotiating a deep water crossing in a natural outdoor setting. This photo was taken at a pack goat training demonstration rather than a competition, so I am standing in the water. In a competition, a handler would be asked to stand on the bank so that only the goat goes in the water.

That said, always include several easy, confidence-building obstacles in every trail class. There’s nothing sadder than watching a child and their goat being repeatedly defeated and discouraged. If a child (or new handler) is having a lot of difficulty, step in and help them out. Encourage them, teach them some handling skills, reassure the goat, and find at least one or two things they can succeed at. Always bring a pocketful of goat treats to entice nervous or stubborn goats and make it a positive experience for everyone involved.

I’m often asked whether treats are allowed on the course, and my answer is always, yes! I don’t necessarily want to see a goat being bribed around the arena, but it beats the alternative of watching a handler try to drag a balky goat by force, and I always want competitors to reward their goats for completing difficult tasks. Making obstacle courses fun for goats makes them fun for the competitors and audience alike. A trail class should put a smile on everyone’s face!

NAN HASSEY and her husband Phil live on 40 acres in Rye, Colorado, where they breed pack and dairy goats. They bought their first pack goat in 2002 and started their own breeding program in 2012. They love Alpine/Nubian crosses and have trained their wethers to pack and to pull carts and carriages in single and team hitches. www.goatorama.com

Originally published in the September 1, 2025 digital issue of Goat Journal.