A while back, someone posted the following question in a social media group focused on Foley:

“How do I make the sound of a goat walking on a wood floor?”

There are some false assumptions in this good but naïve question that I’ll challenge a bit. One assumption is that goat footsteps have a particular sound profile that is different from deer footsteps, pig footsteps, etc. They don’t. There is nothing intrinsic to the foot of a goat, or even the way that a goat walks, that would make it sound significantly different from lots of other hoofed animals.

Another assumption in the question is that there is only one kind of wood floor sound. In fact, the structure of wooden floors and the sounds they make when stepped-on varies enormously.

A third, and maybe the most important false assumption, is that the job of foley is always to simply duplicate as nearly as possible what you would hear if a real goat were in your presence and stepping on some kind of generic wooden floor in a context of no emotion or neutral emotion.

The reason that last assumption is naïve is that most foley has two basic storytelling jobs.

One of those jobs is to be believable in the context of the moment. The other job is to reflect/express mood and character. Is it a big goat? If it is, than it probably needs big foley. Is it a clumsy goat? If it is, then the foley should try to make it sound clumsy even if the visuals don’t necessarily indicate that.

What’s the “mood” of the space the goat is in? Is it in bad shape, nearly falling down? If it is, then the goat footsteps should reflect that. Maybe it’s solid as a rock. Reflect that.

And how about the owner of the goat? Are they frightening? Should the goat tread lightly because of that?

Do we want these goat feet to stand out, or to blend-in to all the other surrounding sounds to some degree? The answer to that question should affect the choices we make about the goat foot props, surface, and performance.

So, in order to give useful advice to the person posting the question, I would need a lot more information about the story, the moment, and the characters, including the goats.