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To Get one's Goat
Where does the expression come from?
If someone has GOT YOUR GOAT then it mean they have caused you to be annoyed. But where does the expression come from? There are several explanations:
1. Horses of a highly-strung nature were often accompanied by a goat (or a sheep). It was a way of calming a horse down, especially a thoroughbred horse before a race. See horse problems. The legend has it that rivals and crooks deliberately betting against that horse, would steal the goat, resulting in the horse being upset and less able to race. Such practices are uncommon these days (see bookmakers), although it was said to be common in America in the early 20th Century.
2. There is an old French phrase "prendre la chèvre" which also means approximately "to get your goat" or "to take away the goat". Various places suggest this is because in old times a person's goat would be their only source of milk, so they'd be understandably miffed if someone took it!
A few references to these ideas and some variants:
www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-get1.htm
http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/bulletin_board/16/messages/819.html
www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/sayings.htm
A few things that might "get your goat" these days: spam, annoying pop-ups, spyware, cybersquatters.