For us, there is a goose control season. We are located just enough North that the geese leave our area for the Winter. Just to our South thirty to forty minutes or so, it seems geese can live year round. You may not be aware, but many geese don’t really migrate, migrate down South that is. What are called resident geese stay in a small geographic area moving from place to place as they need to. As Spring arrives this far North, the geese will arrive with the first thaw of ice and melt of snow. The flocks will disperse to different properties, and pairs of geese will set up nesting sites. It is best to be ready to deter flocks form settling comfortably and pairs from doing their thing. There has been some thought that geese should be left alone until after they have nested, but this has been shown to lead to habitual patterns on properties that escalate into big problems.
So to be ready for the goose control work of the Spring with your Border Collies calls for keeping the dogs happy during Winter. It also means, they should be fit, well trained and you should be too. What could be more healthy and fulfilling than being out and about with your Border Collies, as it is with any dogs, exercising in the beauty of Winter?! We take our Border Collies, young and old, our mix breed too, on trips to socialize and to get exercise in parks and wild lands. We have cross-country skied along with the dogs and snowshoed as well. Winter is a great time to train with your Border Collies for the upcoming goose control season. Herding training is what the Border Collies instincts were designed for and what brings deep satisfaction to these herding breeds.
At the very end of last December, I participated in my first Open Sheep Dog trail with the two Border Collies I run in trails, Skye and Blade. Caleb runs our two-year-old Border Collie, Tara in novice classes in sheepdog trials. The trail was in nearby Western Massachusetts. I had run Skye and Blade in the highest level class of the Novice Trails until this Open Trail. I felt it was time to try our hand at the highest skills these sheepdog trails offer and against the best sheepdog handlers in the North East. Skye and Blade did not win any ribbons in this trial, but I think we made a good show of ourselves, and we will keep practicing for the sheepdog trials which will make our goose control and farm work better, as well.