Back in the early 1940s, in a poor farming community near Palanga, Lithuania, there lived a small boy. The boy, no stranger to hard work, had a litany of daily chores to keep him out of trouble. Each morning, the boy would awaken before dawn to milk the family goat. As food could be scarce, this particular chore sometimes became his most important. The city of Palanga, perched on the shore of the Baltic Sea, receives a large amount of rainfall each winter. This oftentimes would create a serious problem for the boy. You see, the family goat was kept in a small field near the boy's house, and the mud created by the excessive rain made the area almost impossible to traverse. No matter the conditions, the goat had to be milked.
On these wet, muddy mornings, the boy took on the almost Herculean task of keeping the goat in one place while being milked. All too often, this proved to be impossible as the goat would slip and slide in the mud and what little milk was collected would be lost to the mudslide. One day, this inventive boy had an idea. "The goat should wear shoes!" he exclaimed. The boy found an old remnant of red canvas behind his house and promptly cut out 4 round pieces, which he then placed under the hooves of the goat. He pulled them up and then gently tied them on. It worked! This was just the right amount of traction to help the goat stand still while being milked. From that day on, the townspeople would speak admiringly of this small boy and his funny little invention, the Goat Sneakers.
Is the story true? Hard to say, but the story inspired a unique business name and the boy's inventiveness inspired us!