This is the season when geese are descending on the pond in
the center of the townhouse complex I live in. Goose poop all over the place!
Geese strutting around and honking as if they own the place! As I have
mentioned before, border collies are reputed to make great goose dogs. Since day
one I have been looking at putting Olive to work keeping those geese in line.
Until recently I was running with Olive after the geese when
we saw them congregating near the pond. Geese are not very smart birds, so I
have been led to believe, and think that a border collie (or I suppose most
other dogs) are wolves and will flee. That seems to be the case with Olive. She
shows no fear of geese. Lately I have been just letting go of the leash and
letting her at ‘em, chasing those geese into the pond. Olive seems to love it.
What really pleases me is that after the geese are all in the water I call
Olive to “come” and she immediately makes a beeline for me. Perhaps she is more
ready for geese herding lessons than I had thought.
Currently I have her in a class called “Family Dog 1” which
ends this coming Sunday. I have already signed up and paid for the next class,
“Family Dog 2”. That runs into January. The training center, “Tails U Win”,
does sometimes offer a “Family Dog 3”. If they do after January I will likely
enroll Olive. If not, there is a “Good Canine Citizen” class that we might
take. That should bring us into the Spring when I hope to get Olive into
training as a herding dog at a facility in a nearby town that specializes in
such training. When I spoke with them by phone I was told that they could train
Olive as a goose dog. The question mark is that they told me that Connecticut
would require me to be licensed as a wildlife management officer. What that
entails I haven’t really looked into as yet. If it’s a matter of reading a few
books and taking an exam, I might go for it. If I’m required to get a degree in
wildlife management from a university, probably not.
I suppose that technically I
should not be letting Olive loose after the geese. I don't even have any authorization from the complex association, though virtually everyone in
my complex despises the goose and their omnipresent poop and will probably not
complain to whatever State office oversees this.
With Thanksgiving next week Olive will be part of my family’s
celebration. I only hope that she will behave herself and not pester everyone
during dinner. Two commands I would like to teach her: “Stop barking” and “go
lay down and be quiet until we finish dinner”.
