One of the most common things that we hear whenever we discuss our work with people is, “Oh wow! My dog would be so good at that!” or, “My dog loves to run, how do I sign up?” At Geese Guys we LOVE all dogs! We find their antics and joyful nature endlessly amusing, and we love to talk to our community partners about their furry friends.
Like this goofball! This is Delilah and she’s a great pet dog that loves to run and play. Check out that silly smile! Isn’t she a crack up?
Delilah is a great pet, but she isn’t a Goose Dog. What makes the dogs we use for goose hazing different from the average pet, and how do we select these animals to join our team of professionals?
Friendly and Safe Temperament
The very first thing we consider when looking for the canine members of our team is a friendly and safe temperament. Every dog that works with us at Geese Guys needs to be trustworthy in pretty much any situation, so that they’ll make good choices regardless of potential distractions that may be around them. This includes being safe and social with all sorts of people and animals in all kinds of environments. We work in loud places, quiet places, crowded places, places with traffic and places with a variety of other factors that are not always easy to predict. It is important that every dog who works with us is able to comfortably navigate these challenging environments, all while effectively and humanely keeping our clients’ properties clear of geese!
When our dogs aren’t at work, they love to make new friends with all sorts of people. Could this pair be any cuter?
Our dogs even make friends with zombies, lol.
Border Collies… Border Collies everywhere.
Anyone that looks at the photos of our canine team members will notice a trend… with very few exceptions, almost all of them are Border Collies or other herding breeds that are closely related to Border Collies. Although we do love our Border Collies, this isn’t just a personal preference, it is actually based on the function that the breed was originally created for. The Border Collie was originally developed to assist shepherds with large flocks of sheep in the border land area between Scotland and England. They are uniquely suited to this work due to their use of “eye” (their intense gaze) as well as an inherent understanding of how to move in order to control the movement of the livestock they’re herding by mimicking a stalking predator.
That intense gaze and stalking body position are behaviors that make up the predatory sequence (which we’ll be doing another post about later, since there’s a lot to it) and these particular traits have been selectively bred for many generations in Border Collies.
(Fun BC fact: Border Collie’s got their name because they were historically bred along the border between Scotland and England, where they worked to control large flocks of sheep in open country, so they’re the collie (sheep dog) from the border lands.)
The ISDS (International Sheep Dog Society) opens their telling of the breed’s history by reminding us that “There is no good flock without a good shepherd. And no good shepherd without a good dog. So goes the old saying and it is true that the history of the Border Collie is totally bound up with the species they were developed to work – sheep.” It is the Border Collie’s inherent ability to control livestock using eye which made them such valuable partners to the shepherds that took great care to develop the breed.
The eye makes all the difference…
When assessing a dog for work in discouraging flocks of Canada geese from being in areas where they are in conflict with people, that same intense gaze is extremely useful, as it mimics the kind of stare that a natural predator would use when hunting. The geese are biologically programmed to recognize that stare as a threat to their safety, so it makes a big impact when they see it from our dogs! They tend to remember the areas that they recognize as having predators versus areas where there are not predators.
(While Border Collies are the perfect breed for goose hazing, we’re proud to also have exceptional individuals from other breeds which have proven to possess the temperament and eye needed to do this work at a high level. Check out our team page to see photos of all of our canine partners! https://www.geeseguys.com/our-team
The geese are safe!
Even though the geese believe that the dogs represent predators in the area, one of the most important traits of the dogs we select is that they would never hurt a goose even if they had the opportunity. The dogs will stare at a goose, they will stalk the flock, and they will run in when asked to; but that’s as far as their predatory mimicking goes. Additionally the dogs are trained to return to the handler immediately when they are called. (Good recall is a safety skill for dogs working in busy settings! All of our dogs are someone’s pet too, so we really value reliable recall in our Goose Dogs and emphasize recall training throughout the company.) It is a really neat thing to see one of our dogs running as fast as they can back to their handler to celebrate a job well done! Happy dogs that understand their job make for a great day at the “office!”
Ultimately, our canine partners are selected for traits and skills that make them effective goose hazers in the wide variety of environments where we provide services, while also being safe for the people and animals that they will encounter in a day at work. Of course… the fact that they’re really cute and very fun certainly doesn’t hurt either!
Ready to make these dogs part of maintaining the health and beauty of your property? We’re looking forward to hearing from you!
