Nah, another reference to the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. In the book, owning a real, live animal is considered a mark of high status. However, animals are hard to care for and die easily, so many people "fake" that status by having an artificial animal. In the book, Deckard and his wife are quite devastated over the loss of his goat.

That's my fault in the original comment, I remembered it as a sheep, not a goat, because of the title of the book.