What brings geese to a client’s property is usually grass and water. Green grass for the geese to eat and poop on and water bodies for them to go to for protection. Eating lawns, playing fields, and golf courses are new to geese. Geese have always used water for a protective home. Geese are waterfowl, after all. Geese, Canadian Geese included, have that longneck to dabble. Dabble means, floating on the water and reaching underwater to eat water plants growing on the bottom. I guess you can say that when geese first came about, there were not all the lawns, fields and parks for easy pickings.
On a goose control visit for a corporate client in Connecticut last Spring, Skye and Jim were my team. These two Border Collies are our oldest. Jim is just 10, and Skye is 7 and half years old. You would never know they have a little age on them. Both Border Collies move around, run and play and work with enthusiasm. They, like our other Border Collies and one mix breed dog, do have the practice to put that energy to constructive and appropriate work on our homestead and for goose control trips.
We arrived at the corporate client’s property and saw that there were 12 geese on the grass near a medium sized pond. Geese if they feel very comfortable on a client’s property will graze on grass away from water. If geese are a bit worried that there is a predator around, they will feed near water so they can get swiftly to safety. As I approached the geese on foot with Jim and Skye, the geese stopped eating. I sent Jim on an outrun around to the other side of the pond and sent Skye straight toward the geese in a part stalking herding manner and a part chase mode. The geese got alarmed at the two Border Collies and started honking. Some of the geese flew away while others closest to the water jogged into the pond.
Jim stopped on the other side of the pond and got into a staking pose while Skye slipped into the water after the geese. Soon, with both Border Collies acting make believe all predator like, the geese in the pond flew off and joined those already in the air. Geese who are members of a family will wait for others to join them if they separate for some reason. It is our job to herd – chase geese in such a way that we don’t separate them.
Both dogs joined me for an inspection of the grass and parking lot. There was not too much poop, meaning, geese hadn’t been there too much since our last visit. Before we left the corporate properties, both Jim and Skye took a swim in the pond. The day was getting a little hot, and the water must have felt good to them. They came out of the pond with a bit of aquatic plant growth on them, which I cleaned off. If only geese would still eat in the ponds, there would not be such an issue between them and people. We got back into the goose mobile for the trip back home in New York.
On the way, we visited a summer camp facility were geese eat on the lawns and poop on the grass and beaches.
After we worked with what geese we found at the camp and in the nearby lake, the dogs and I had a little time on our hands. Jim and Skye enjoyed another swim in the lovely mountain lake. Jim is more of a water dog than Skye. But she too enjoyed the feel of the cool water. Soon the camp would open for the season. There will be many campers and counselors who don’t want to walk all over barefooted or shoed in lots of goose poo. Hopefully the geese there will learn to go somewhere where people don’t get bothered by them.