Whitewater Dog Park

 

The Goose Dog

 

            She taught herself, and I merely followed along, watching her chase the large flocks of geese off the city parks and out of the Hillside Cemetery. Quite by accident, really. I just thought it was a fun thing to do, chasing the geese off.

It had started oh so many years ago, when an officer from the Department of Natural Resources called me at work.

"Are you the lady with the black and white dog? The Border Collie?" Over the phone, her metallic voice was all business.

"Why yes. I am."

"Good. I have heard that Border Collies are good for chasing the geese of golf courses and such. Does your Border Collie do that?"

"Um… I don't know. I've never tried it - but she certainly is interested in the geese. What did you have in mind?" I asked.

"Well, as you know, the geese are getting to be a nuisance bird out here in the parks. Oh, people think the young hatchlings are cute and all, and they enjoy feeding the geese. However, when we have a few hundred of them on the beach and in the picnic area - all grown up, then nobody thinks they're cute anymore. Now with all the bird poop everywhere. You can't walk without stepping in it! If I get you a permit, would you be willing to bring your Border Collie out here?"

"I've never done this before - and of course, neither has my dog. But sure. We'll give it a shot."

"Great! What's your fax number? We don't want your dog hurting the geese, now. Just chase them off."

"Ok."

Pallie placed her white paw on my foot and looked up at me from her red plaid snuggler. She obviously knew I had been talking about her. Warm and cozy in her fleece "nest," I tried to picture her at her new job. Could she do it? She studied my face while she listened to my thoughts, and the white tip of her tail fluttered for a moment.

She tucked her nose back into the inner curve of the snuggler and let out a contented sigh. Radiant in health, her soft black coat lay neatly arranged and orderly over her muscled body. I smiled to myself and wondered if she would enjoy this new job, and waited for the fax machine to ring.

 

         The next morning I decided it might be a good idea to see if Pallie was truly interested in chasing the geese off. She is, after all, a bit of a chicken. Rather than drive the eight miles out to the park, I decided we would walk the two blocks down to the cemetery. All summer, a large flock of geese had gathered there too.

The geese began flocking together down by the lakeshore a few years earlier. At first, there had only been a handful of them, standing there with their orange-colored feet in water and their heads held proudly high. They were just a stone's throw from the wrought iron entrance gates. The novelty of having the beautiful large birds so nearby was a wonder and a joy to all who came down to the water's edge. People began leaving small piles of shelled corn along the shore. The geese grew so accustomed to seeing the little piles of yellow kernels and the attentive people, they became nearly tame by midsummer.

The cemetery spread over a long hill, with the lake wrapping quietly around the north and west sides. Ancient Norfolk pines adorned the top of the hill and shaded the old white markers in a deep mossy gloom. A miscellaneous collection of latter day grave markers staunchly attempted to hold back the passing of time, and their changing colors and styles quietly denoted their era. Tall spires not unlike the spires of the churches, characterized the most ancient makers at the top of the hill. At the south end of the cemetery, solid black or pink blocks of marble identified the trend in this present century.

The lake was a very shallow one - only six feet deep in the very center. However, the bottom was muck and silt that had washed down from the farm fields, adding another three or four feet of depth. Every winter the lake froze over solidly. In no time at all, the fishermen appeared in their blaze orange hunting attire (the warmest clothing they had, no doubt) with their big white bait buckets. They drilled holes into the ice with their gas-powered augers and sat down on the five gallon buckets to wait for the fish. Bright orange figures hunched up so tight against the bitter winds, they appeared headless. These dedicated fishermen dotted the north end of the lake through much of the winter, solitary, still like a parody of the grave markers on the hill.

On the opposite shore, the garnet and cream-colored train depot stood crisp and clean against the backdrop of older building that denoted the downtown district. Skaters of all ages trudged down to the lake with shovels and cleared an area for pick-up games of ice hockey. Often, a puck would skid wildly across the ice and disappear down a hole created by the fishermen. Soon, the angry exchanges between the two divergent sports enthusiasts echoed across the frozen expanse.

As spring neared, the college students had broomball tournaments just a bit further up the lake, directly across from one of the college pubs. Clad in absurd team uniforms and not at all steady upon their feet, their raucous and infectious laughter drew crowds of people. About every half hour, the entire broomball tournament would disappear from the ice, numbed by the cold, and the merriment continued inside the pubs with beers for all.

The days began to lengthen out, the elegant geese returned. Each morning long chevrons of honking geese crisscrossed high over the lake and the town. Circling the lake and honking to each other, they descended and water-skied gracefully into the open water near the cemetery. The corn was an easy meal - and perhaps the geese enjoyed watching broomball tournaments too. The flock had grown. Two years later, it had grown considerably.

The geese wandered about the edge of cemetery stretching their long black necks high whenever the humans appeared. The braver - or perhaps the tamer geese - had the audacity to proudly march right up to the humans who carried the small bags of corn.   Up close, they were ever so beautiful and just a bit intimidating with their demands for a corn meal. Within a month, splotches of dark green goose droppings thoroughly covered the ground along the shore.  Soon, it was impossible to walk the paths that wove through the cemetery without stepping in the dank goose droppings.

The geese waddled up the hill, and leisurely wandered between the ancient grave markers to eat the grasshoppers. They settled themselves most comfortably under the shady trees and tucked their heads beneath a wing.

Down along the shore, the grass began to die out, and small areas where the birds nested, began to look like a moonscape. The cemetery committee and the city officials put up signs reading:

Do Not Feed The Geese

Unfortunately, the geese could not read the signs, and I think there might have been a few folks who could not read it either. Small piles of shelled corn still appeared for the geese until the city officials imposed a fine on anyone caught feeding the birds.

Nonetheless, the flock continued to grow, and on an inspiration, the city brought in a cannon. Twice a day the stentorian "BOOM!" of the cannon echoed across the lake and bounced off the Cream City brick buildings on the opposite shore. Folks gathered down by the depot to watch several hundred startled and raucous geese lift off the ground after the blast from the cannon.

For two weeks, this worked marvelously - and then the geese suddenly ignored the cannon. Now what?

Pallie and I walked through the large iron gates and approached three men who stood in the middle of the cemetery parking lot. The cannon was no longer there. Obviously, it was pointless to use it any longer. They stood silently staring at several hundred geese on the long cemetery hill. Scratching their heads and muttering to themselves, all they could do was watch the geese. The geese had seen these men so often, and like the cannon, they too, were ignored.

The morning was still and slightly cool. Humid from a light rain the night before, the air felt damp and a slight haze hung under the tall Norfolk pines up near the top of the hill where the crypts with their massive metal doors stood deadly silent.

"Excuse me," I said politely.

The three men, so deeply engrossed with their goose problem had not heard Pallie and I walk up behind them. They jumped involuntarily and whirled about to face me.

"Do you mind if I let my Border Collie loose to chase the geese out of the cemetery?"

All three men turned and looked at each other, stunned with the simplicity of the idea. They grinned from ear to ear. One man removed his baseball and held it against his chest.

"Sure!! Go ahead!"

"Thank you," I said.

I walked Pallie away from the three men and turned her to face the flock of geese on the hillside. The sun had just begun to peek out from the patchy clouds, hitting the sunny areas here and there. Steam rose in wisps like slender, pale ghosts rising from the white limestone grave markers as the sun warmed them. The geese, undaunted and unaware, strutted about, twisting their black heads. They honked at the black and white dog that eyed them with such intensity.

I unhooked Pallie's leash while hanging onto her collar, and pointed to the flock.

"Pallie. Look!"

Her tail slowly rose and I felt the muscles of her body tense and quiver beneath my hands.

"Git 'em!" I glanced at my watch, wondering how long it would take to clear three hundred geese from the long hillside.

Pallie shot off across the small parking lot; hitting full speed by the time she reached the end of it, and took a graceful leap over the ditch. Her tail spun not unlike a propeller and she rocketed up the hill right into the nearest gathering of geese.

The large flock first waddled away as fast as they could when they saw the dog bearing down upon them. The geese began honking in alarm, calling out to each other, and then they spread they large wings to take flight.

The three men stood beside me, and we watched with mixed feelings of something majestic and sublime at the beautiful sight of what happened next.

Hundreds of puissant and dusty brown wings beat the ground, then the air, and the birds took slowly to flight, rising with inexplicable power and beauty. Below, the black and white dog, cut a broad arc through sound of the rising wings and caused the birds to surge from the earth like a long rolling wave. They banked their wings and headed west toward the far shore. Pallie ran stoutly beneath them, clearing the bank as she barked and charged after them. The birds kept flying, out past the distance bank, and headed north to Prince's Point, five miles away.

The sounds of the honking geese grew faint as the birds melted into small slashes in the blue sky.  Silence once again fell over the cemetery. Here and there, lay an occasional long feather.

Pallie stood silent and still at the shore, watching the geese disappear. She flipped her head back toward me with eyes ever so bright and full of life. It was such a contrast to the silence of the cemetery. She was so happy and I felt so much love for her. It was such an easy thing, this moment of joy for her.

"Pallie, come!"

Pallie strutted back to me with her head held high, and full of herself. She had decided it was a job well done.

By the end of that first summer, the geese decided the Hillside Cemetery was not a good place to hang out anymore. That black and white dog kept chasing them off three times a day. The grass along the shore grew back, bird poop became a thing of the past, and the silence of the cemetery pervaded once again. Off in the distance toward Prince's Point, the occasional boom of a canon echoed back to the quiet and gooseless lake.

 

 

           I  smiled as I thought back on that day. Ten years had gone by and Pallie will be thirteen years old on the fourth of July. She has chased thousands of geese over the years, never harming a one.

Oh, she still chases the geese through the lush green grass, zigzagging her way around the ancient grave markers, leaping over the fallen limbs of the weeping willow, over the hill and down to the water's edge. She barks decisively, emphatically and joyously, yes, oh yes… with her eyes closed in slumber as she rests on her dog bed, battling for her life against the cancer that is slowly killing her.  On "that" day, I think she will chase the geese up over the Distance Hill. I shall stand there with her worn collar in my hand, still warm with boundless love for her, and I will be there to watch her make that last dash, chasing the mystical geese toward the Master.

It was an unusually warm winter day. The sun, so bright and oddly foreign for a winter sky, had turned the snow to a soft white mush. A broad slick of smoothly polished ice, black as obsidian, slid across the tarmacadam drive that led to the beach down by the swimming hole. I decided today would be a good day for Pallie and I to walk along the beach. We would cross the spillway and make a loop back along the other side of the creek that emptied into the lake.

Soon spring would be here and the water lilies would again populate just beyond the steep concrete steps where the anglers loved to sling their lines into the spring-fed water. Yes, spring was just around the corner. I could feel it in the air.

High above us, long strings of geese glided toward the Hillside cemetery, and I watched as they dipped their wings to lose altitude. They circled the lake and disappeared behind the venerable Norfolk pines. Pallie's eyes briefly took on the old intensity and her tail fluttered. But then she let out a small sigh and looked up at me sadly.

"I am too old now."

We turned away from the Hillside cemetery and walked toward the swimming hole. I heard the ice sound out a long and jagged "crack!" Surely, somewhere up in heaven, when a heart breaks, it must sound similar. I never would have thought that the sight of returning geese could cause my heart to ache as it did that morning . . . tempus fugit.

Slowly and cautiously, we crossed the expanse of ice that had flowed across the drive - and there, standing perhaps fifty feet away on the grassy slope near the swimming hole, stood six geese. They were watching us.

Pallie's tail slowly rose while her head dropped. Her eyes, now a bit cloudy, fixed on the geese. I watched her nose turn rubbery as she caught their scent and her lips now grizzled in the corners, parted into a slight smile.

I knelt beside her, took her collar and unhooked the leash, then whispered.

"Pallie… git 'em!"

Her face split into the biggest smile and her tail became a propeller again. As fast as her old body could carry her, now stiff with age and cancer, she ran across the snow toward the geese. Her long graceful stride was gone, but she had all the heart of her adolescence.

The geese rose from the snow and floated off over the hill. Pallie chased them until it was obvious to her that they would not return. She stopped her chase and stood panting in the middle of the field, as she watched the geese disappear over the pines.

Frost from her hot breath fringed her graying face. She turned to look at me, and all the happiness of her youthful days was evident in her dark brown eyes. She smiled for me, and then threw herself on the snow to make doggie snow angels, just as she had done when she was a young thing.

©2005 - Grace Saalsaa