OTUS THE HEAD CAT

NLR’s new goose-chasing dog to meet foul need

Dear Otus,

I read where North Little Rock has bought another vicious dog to torture those lovely Canada geese in Burns Park. As a bird lover, I’m horrified. Why can’t they just leave the poor birds alone?

  • Anser Amici, Maumelle

Dear Anser,

It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you. And it’s a good thing you love the geese, because Maumelle is next to be goosed once Shep gets busy.

There is such a situation as too much of a good thing.

First of all, I would argue that Shep is hardly “vicious.” The 2-year-old Catahoula-blue heeler mix is a pound puppy and a natural herder. And as cute as a bug.

All he wants to do is herd the geese off the golf course, soccer fields and biking trails where they have become a nuisance. I’m not sure he’d know what to do with a goose if he ever caught one.

Shep was bought from a local trainer for the bargain price of $1,600 a couple of weeks ago. That’s half the price tag for trained goose dogs imported from the East Coast.

And Shep will pay for himself in no time by allowing the North Little Rock Parks and Recreation Pooper Scooper to remain in the maintenance shed.

The Scooper, a modified front-end Bobcat S630 skid steer loader, had been kept busy 14 hours a day scooping the estimated 7,400 pounds of goose poop being deposited daily by the park’s 18,000 resident Canada geese.

It was costing approximately $350 a week to operate the machine. Shep gets by each week on a 15-pound bag of Iams ProActive Health Adult Large Breed Dry Dog Food ($20) and a $6.99 bag of Petco Natural Rawhide Knotted Bones, according to Shep’s handler, Burns Park dog whisperer Ian Patrick.

If you want to lay blame for the goose problem, you can trace it back to kind-hearted former six-term Mayor Patrick Henry Hays.

When Little Rock was plagued with Canada geese in 2001, it hired the services of the legendary Fern the border collie. Fern had Rebsamen Golf Course cleared of the foul fowl within two weeks and kept them at bay for more than a decade.

Naturally, the geese simply winged their way across the Arkansas River to Burns Park, where they were welcomed with open arms by the mayor as a cheap tourist attraction. There they propagated like stoats.

Over the years the flock grew from an estimated 1,500 to the 18,000 that currently hector hikers, badger bicyclers, chastise children and gump up the golf course with their daily deposits.

It’s a little known fact that a goose can, shall we say, relieve himself up to 80 times a day. Weighing up to 17 pounds, an adult goose processes food in as little as seven minutes.

Plop a gaggle of geese down on a bike trail and you can get a viscous 100-yard slip-n-slide in half an hour. It’s nasty stuff.

Then there was the unfortunate incident last fall when a golf cart skidded on a slippery section near the clubhouse, careened down the hill, crossed Championship Drive and plunged into the pond.

The driver ended up too near a nest of goslings and was pecked to within an inch of his life.

North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith was left with no choice but to take action.

“We’re hoping this is going to work,” Smith said on Shep’s first day on the job. “We’ll also be using pyrotechnics.We have four or five other things we’ll do. Shep’ll work the trails, the soccer fields, Cook’s Landing. We’re going to keep him busy.”

The first stop for the chastened geese will no doubt be a return across the river to Rebsamen Park. The park has been unprotected since the death of Fern in October. The 14-year-old “natural” was buried with honors on a hill overlooking the 18th green.

Fern’s modus operandi was to circle the geese into flocks of 400 or 500, creep up on them and give them the canine “stank eye.” That sent the birds fleeing in terror across the river.

No replacement has yet been found for Fern, but once Shep starts making an impact, Little Rock will no doubt take action.

City Manager Bruce Moore said last week, “We want to become more proactive so the geese don’t become a problem again.”

City managers go to seminars in order to learn how to use words like “proactive.”

Moore has given the city parks director the green light to look into getting another dog from a breeder.

That will leave Maumelle free with the inviting shores of Lake Willastein and the nearby ponds of the country club. Add the string of ponds running just east of Mohawk Drive and it looks like prime goose territory to me.

Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that what’s proactive for the goose is proactive for the gander.

Disclaimer Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat’s award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. Email: mstorey@arkansasonline.com

HomeStyle, Pages 36 on 03/08/2014

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