Ladies and gentlemen, we goat him. Or did we?

An elusive goat who had police and residents scrambling for more than three days after running away from his owner was captured in Irondale before breaking loose and going on the run again.

Affectionately called Billy by concerned community members, the billy goat was corralled at a home on Montclair Road, not far from where he was first spotted on the loose around 8:30 a.m. Monday.

“It was the homeowner on Montclair Road at the edge of Irondale who roped him. Someone else was following Billy in their car and the homeowner grabbed a rope and lassoed him cowboy style!” said Reese Goode, who helped track down the goat Thursday afternoon.

After Billy was secured, Goode snapped a photo of the goat with the homeowner.

“It started developing into a whole scene around the guy’s backyard with people pulling up from everywhere very quickly,” he said. “The power of social media is real!”

Elizabeth Turnipseed Moss was the driver who followed Billy in her car. She said she tailed the goat through parking lots and streets while a man chased after him.

“Billy ran into a neighborhood and luckily, into a house with a fully fenced yard! So the man ran after Billy in the yard and we shut the gate! The man also had rope and roped Billy,” she said on Facebook.

“I called the police and they came. Also, another woman came who has a goat sanctuary. She has been tracking Billy this whole time and had goats in her car, a goat t-shirt on and goat food for Billy,” Turnipseed Moss said. “We gave Billy water and food (very thirsty and hungry) and she took Billy with her.”

Efforts to reach Irondale police were unsuccessful.

But Two by Two Rescue Animal Rescue, which has been involved in the search effort, said Billy escaped again and remains at large as of late Thursday afternoon.

The search for Billy began around 8:30 a.m. Monday, when Birmingham police responded to a report of a goat in the 800 block of Montclair Road. Officers were assisted by Mountain Brook police.

“Apparently he keeps popping in and out,” said Birmingham Police Officer Truman Fitzgerald on Tuesday. “He is on the loose, but out the public’s eye.”

Trevor Turnbough, a project engineer at Sterling Highlands, spotted the goat Monday morning at the company’s construction site on Montclair Road trotting by his trailer.

Turnbough then recorded video of the goat when the animal’s owner walked up to the site’s entrance. He said the owner told him the goat jumped out of the owner’s window.

“I offered to help because the goat was moving fast, already about halfway down our site,” the project engineer said. “I jumped in my truck to try and cut the goat off, but he made it out of our second entrance. The owner was still chasing right behind him. I tried to block the goat with my truck, but I think he saw his reflection in my driver side door, cocked his head forward, and started charging full speed to ram my truck! I quickly threw it in reverse and got out of the way. The goat kept running.”

Turnbough then returned to work, but it wasn’t his last encounter with the goat.

“I was sitting at a light on the corner of 52nd street and Montclair when a police officer roared into the middle of the intersection. Another one quickly followed but on the corner. Sure enough, here comes the goat at a almost a fast jog letting out a ‘Ble-E-E-E-eh’ goat sound,” he said.

The owner then sprinted by the scene as three more police vehicles approached, Turnbough said.

“The owner and I locked eyes for a second and I could tell he was not happy,” he said. “I felt bad because at this point he had been sprinting after the goat for over two hours.”

On Tuesday, the goat was spotted again by Turnbough several times on the hill in front of the construction site.

Mountain Brook said it got another goat sighting call Monday night “but it ran from officers shortly after they arrived.”

Bill Voigt said he witnessed the goat Monday night running through his backyard on Fairmont Drive.

“Anyone missing a large white goat, black accent markings around head, and with horns?” he asked on social media.

Several other Billy sightings followed, with the goat spotted in Cross Creek, near the Walmart on Montclair Road and other locations in Mountain Brook and Irondale.