Jose Canseco's girlfriend explains why they were pulled over by police with diaper-wearing goats in the car
“Just got pulled over with goats in the car,” the former Oakland A’s slugger wrote from his official account Wednesday evening, alongside a photo of a diaper-wearing goat in the back seat.
A police car was visible out the rear window.
Earlier tweets suggested Canseco and his girlfriend had just traveled five hours north of their Las Vegas home to purchase the goats as pets. By the sounds of it they were making a YouTube documentary about the odyssey. Or something.
The Star called Canseco Thursday to try to find out what was up.
“Are you calling about our goats?” asked Leila Knight, Canseco’s model-and-talent-agent girlfriend, who answered the former slugger’s cell phone.
Knight explained that Canseco — baseball’s most notorious steroid user, who clubbed 46 home runs for the Blue Jays in 1998 — wasn’t immediately available and that he’s “not really interested in doing interviews unless someone’s going to pay him.”
We have a million radio stations calling about it, so ...” she said, trailing off.
Fortunately, Knight was willing to talk pro bono.
“We bought fainting goats … because we both love animals and he really wanted to get some goats,” she explained.
The goats — miniature silky fainting goats, also known as “mini silkies” — were purchased for $175 each from a town in rural Nevada called Round Mountain.
Fainting goats derive their name from the fact that when startled their muscles contract for about 10 seconds, causing them to suddenly — and hilariously — fall over.
The Star asked Knight what she and Canseco planned to do with the goats.
“We’re going to love them,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I have pet dye, so I’m going to dye the ears pink and we’re going to have them as pets.”
Knight said the diapers were Depends, the popular adult diaper brand.
“We just made a hole for the tail,” she explained. “I’m going to have to buy those eventually for Jose, so I might as well start now.”
The Star asked if Canseco’s tweets about a pending documentary about the adventure were true.
“We’ve documented the whole thing and I think we have a bunch of people that want to buy it from us,” Knight said. “If you’re interested, let us know. We have a few contenders.”
The Star has not, as of yet, made an offer.
Since arriving back at the family home in Vegas it seems the goats — since named “Coco” and “Chanel” — have had a bit of a tough time settling in to their new urban life. They’ve been repeatedly head-butting the couple’s four dogs, Knight said.
“We’re calling them The Bash Sisters,” she said.
Get it?
Despite the rocky integration into the family, Canseco — who earlier this year was lobbying to be mayor of Toronto before he found out he needed to be a Canadian citizen — still seemed proud of his latest acquisitions, showing no signs of goat-buyer’s remorse.
