Just days after they arrived in El Paso County to gobble up noxious weeds, 400 goats are leaving, fleeing hostile dog owners and vandals in Bear Creek Regional Park.

Their owner, Lani Malmberg, is making good on a promise she made last year to leave the moment the park’s culture of untamed dogs became too much to control. And after just a few days of chasing off unleashed dogs in the leash-only park, Malmberg is packing the herd up early for the first time in 18 years.

For years, Wyoming-based herder Malmberg has brought her goats to the park to help control noxious weeds, a cost-effective weeding plan that eliminates the purchase of expensive chemicals, and gives the land some natural fertilizer. The program, funded by the Bear Creek Garden Association, is wildly popular – while the goats travel around the country on weed-control duty, their stay in El Paso County is a must-see for residents and school children. But in recent years, loose dogs have attacked or chased the goats, Malmberg said.

“We’ve had things go wrong (in the past),” Malmberg said Monday. “But people’s disrespect is higher than ever. Last year it was terrible, but I stuck through it.”

This year, however, Malmberg has no intention of spending weeks grappling with people who won’t leash their dogs, or apparent clandestine attempts to let her goats out when she’s not there. Some owners were belligerent when Malmberg approached them about their unleashed dogs. Then, about 11 p.m. on Saturday, Malmberg got word that the goats had escaped their pen; she’s not sure how they got out.

Ultimately, there is only so much the county can do to enforce the leash rules in Bear Creek Park. While the park rules prohibit dogs without a leash, the county can’t legally punish dog owners by writing them a ticket, although that measure was contemplated in 2014, said Brad Bixler, the El Paso County park operations manager. The ability to ticket dog owners would require an ordinance, Bixler said.

Instead, the county has made an effort to help Malmberg by having animal control officials stop by at least once a day, and posting signs about the goats around the park.

But even that effort was stymied. A week before Malmberg’s herd arrived several of the new signs were stolen, Bixler said.

“I don’t know if somebody’s out for the goats. I don’t think so,” Bixler said. “They just probably wanted the metal.”

The stolen signs inspired a group of Gold Camp Elementary school students to draw new ones to be posted around the park. Art teacher Kari Merritt has been taking her fifth grade art students to visit Malmberg’s goats for five years, combining the field trip into a joint biology and art lesson. This year’s events inspired an unusual art class – the kids drew pictures of goats in pens and dogs on leashes to help give dog-walkers a better picture of how they should behave. Of course, the kids agreed, the dog owners should know better.

“There are already signs there that say walking dogs off leashes is illegal,” said Garrett Single, 10, one of Merritt’s students.

Despite the help, continued canine assaults and the late-night escape have prompted Malmberg to leave, with the pledge that she’ll charge the garden association double the initial contract amount. She has agreed to stick around until Tuesday morning to give her usual talk to Merritt’s students, but then she’ll head out, two to three weeks ahead of schedule.

If Malmberg returns next year, she hopes the county will have paved the way for a smooth grazing season, preferably with an ordinance that prevents dogs from entering the park while the goats are there. Bixler makes no promises, but said that county parks department plans to pursue changing ordinances to allow officials to issue tickets.

Meanwhile, the Gold Camp Elementary kids are lucky to catch the goats before they head off to their next grazing assignment in Salt Lake City.

“My dad loves the goats,” said Cale O’Day, 10, who drives past the herd every morning on his way to school. “So he’ll be pretty sad if they don’t come back.”