Just catching up with The New York Times, where I see a story on a three-legged goat has captured the heart of ag-minded New Yorkers.

They are both amputees: She lost part of her right leg to bone cancer at the age of 10, and he lost part of his left leg four months ago because of an injury he most likely suffered at a Brooklyn slaughterhouse. Her name is Jenny Brown, and she is a 36-year-old television producer turned animal rights advocate. His name is Albie, and he is a goat of unknown age and breed.

More animals are killed or injured in slaughterhouses than anywhere else, I bet. Apparently, Albie (full name: Albert Schweitzer) got his leg bound, causing tissue damage which Ms. Brown tried to treat homeopathically. That didn’t work. So we discover that it cost $5,000 to do the amputation on the goat. His prosthetic? Who knows, but maybe another twenty grand. The goat is a victim of George W. Bush’s mean-spirited social policies, of course, but he is not without support:

Albie does not have health insurance, but among his benefactors are Martin Rowe, a book publisher who lives in Carroll Gardens and ran the New York Marathon last fall on Albie’s behalf.

As it happens, I have some experience to bring to this story, which Times readers have understandably made one of their favorites. When we lived in Pennsylvania, we owned a pony who got involved with some fencing. The vet came and suggested operating ballistically, but my fashion-illustrator wife intervened and, using some really smelly salves, lots of leg-baths with Dreft, and massive doses of anti-biotic delivered to the pony in frankly bizarre ways, she had the animal back on her feet in a summer. Plus, I also used to own a three-legged goat. His name was Skippy and he was great company for Jack, the blind donkey whose life oddly paralleled my own. He didn’t have a busy schedule, but he got around just fine.

Now, I’m not trying to make Ms. Brown out to be a bleu-state goof. But according to Save the Children, the amount she and the jogging book publisher want to invest in the goat is enough to support an African kid from age zero to age 60. Two Albert Schweitzers, two different stories.

So naturally this story led to another Times piece — an end-of-the-world item by Thomas Friedman called “Dumb as we wanna be,” which, coincidentally, is also a kind of answer to a question from Nicholas Kristof, one that all Times readers need to ask themselves: “Can we be as smart as bats?”

Bats, definitely.