Summit Goat Makes Headlines, Again

This week Cocoa the celebrity goat, a resident of Summit—one this reporter has yet to meet—turned heads and caused a stir in media circles. And for what else but eating pizza in Manhattan.

A story that appeared on the Huffington Post reports:

A crowd quickly gathered outside Famous Famiglia's floor-to-ceiling windows on the bustling corner of 50th Street and Broadway to snap photos. The farm animal, which was about the size of a large dog, appeared to be wearing a leash and had a red satchel around its neck.

"Maybe it's a service animal," said one man. "It could be a seeing-eye goat," joked another.

Cocoa is owned by Summit resident Cyrus Fakroddin, and was the subject a fairly indepth profile in the Star-Ledger in 2010. 

Our own crack blogger Patrick Nash did a profile of Fakroddin and Cocoa in the fall. Nash found out that Cocoa is a great safety measure for a long drive:

Cocoa has relished the bright lights of the big city as well. Cyrus has taken her into Times Square for a Good Morning America broadcast. She has also been to Madison Square Garden where she caused quite a stir. Two uniformed police officers came up to Cyrus and asked him to leave. When he questioned why, the officers said, “there are a lot of security cameras around here. The people behind the cameras are paying attention to Cocoa instead of doing their job.” Cyrus’s favorite travel story is when he drove to his hometown in Illinois with Cocoa.  He was leaving Summit at 3 PM and attempting to drive straight through until the early morning. During the long excursion, Cyrus was afraid of nodding off while driving. However, Cocoa needed to relieve herself about every two hours. When she needed to go, she would gently nudge Cyrus in the shoulder. So Cyrus got a good rush of cold air every two hours pulling over to the side of the road. This kept him awake and therefore removed any chance of him dozing off during the trip.

Summit Patch has put out a call to Fakroddin via his Facebook page. We'll see if the recent brush with fame has gotten more to his or Cocoa's head.