Regarding the golves: In the wild they are extremely vicious little critters, standing on the average about 18 hands high and 8 across the withers. Their teeth, off which they have sixteen rows top and 18 to 22 bottom, vary in length from six to sixteen inches; the hollow down the middle is a channel for the hemoneurotoxin secreted from the poison sac located just behind what passes for their brain (the sac holds slightly over two liters of poison). They are covered with little dimples which, when the beastie is angered, become filled with extremely sharp spines tipped with barbed points; each spine is filled with a kerosene-like substance that spills out and ignites when the spine is torn loose and embedded in the victim. They move by rolling along, sometimes reaching speeds of forty or more miles per hour, and have been known to "hop" from place to place. These hops can cover over 300 meters, and are usually used as a form of surprise attack -- the animal screams just before it lands on its victim and if you hear "FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR" you best defend yourself from the attacking golf. You won't be able to do so, but you can try -- one chap, back in 1897, managed to fend one off for six seconds. He died horribly, of course, but the record still stands.

Golves kill everything they touch. If you're in The West and you see an area of scrub and sagebrush you can bet that it's just now recovering from the passage of a herd of golves, perhaps as along as a century ago.

They do make good and faithful pets, and they're wonderful with children. It's the wild ones that are a problem, and those that turn feral, and those that suddenly lose their domestication.