I strongly feel that the “job” of goose control should be done well. That means taking care of the dogs, geese, clients and anyone else who happens to be around. By “taking care” I mean the interest, health, and safety of all involved be considered. And lastly, the job at hand be performed well. And this all calls for skill formed and informed by practice, knowledgable study and lessons, and experience.
Talking about skill acquisition is all very easy to say and may seem like overkill, but harm has been caused by lack of skill. Dogs have gotten into trouble doing goose control, even drowned and geese have been hurt, needlessly, over frightened and the work to little effect. There is also a franchise out there that sells a fancy package to clients and sells its product to prospective franchise owners. I am told that these franchise owners are not supported with adequate training at all, so these poor people wind up not being able to function as goose control contractors. People spend a lot of time and money to no good result, and the poor Border Collies are ill-used.
I am not saying that everyone who uses dogs, preferably herding dogs like Border Collies needs skills that take years to acquire, but I am suggesting some time to gain knowledge of geese and these working dogs. When I was a young man, running an educational farm and got my first Border Collie, it took me a while to realize what I did not know about these intelligent but also very active and highly driven dogs. I usually tell people, please do not wait as long as I did to take lessons. Do it right from the start!
Of course, being professional means also skill and a good attitude with people too. The way we act, how reliable we are as well as having adequate skills with Border Collies and understanding geese and other wildlife are all part of the package of being professional. Having a plan at how to integrate your efforts with other means of keeping geese away will only help matters.
I took our two-year-old Border Collie Tara and eight-year-old Borer Collie Skye out on this year’s first goose control visits, recently. They had a great time. They were not exactly listening to me on our first stop. This was a school with big wide fields. Oh, they did their job effectively enough, running toward the geese when asked, just enough to make the geese fly quickly away. However, they did not take their flank “commands”, which set which direction I want them to go. It was all the excitement of the long Winter being over. With the third flock on the third field being herd-chased off, Tara and Skye were still doing a great job and were now taking my commands with no problem.
Even experienced goose control dogs like Tara and Skys need refreshers, even though we practice our herding skills at home with sheep and poultry. Our second visit that morning involved a client with a lake surrounded by roads and small parks. Geese were on the Lake, near shore, so we had to be careful about any cars on the roads. Tara and Skye were careful to listen, staying off the roads and stopping and coming back to me when I asked during the job. No matter how many of these goose control trips I do, I never take anything for granted. My description of professionalism may seem like stern stuff, but once you have it down, the reward of working properly with Border Collies out in nature is as rewarding as it gets.