Dogs of C-Kennel by Mick & Mason Mastroianni for July 16, 2024

Got your goose, it seems

That’s why the ancient Romans used them to guard their homes.

It’s a running joke here in Canada that although we have no shortage of animals such as bears, cougars and wolves, the creature we are most afraid of is the Canada Goose. There is some basis for this. While encounters with large predators do happen occasionally, few Canadians can claim they’ve never been confronted by an irate honker.

Those big, hard bills are deadly accurate, and a wing can break your arm.

They say that dino’s evolved into birds. I can believe that.

A few weeks ago I watched a trumpeter swan attacking a Canadian goose. He didn’t like the goose in his part of the swamp. Let me tell you, that swan is a huge bird! I wouldn’t want to engage in battle with either bird!

LOL. I have raised these guys and had them as pets before releasing them back to the wild. Hard to feed though because their natural prey is Canadians. :)

Years ago we had geese on the farm. The barn dogs were terrified of them. I carried a broom with me when they were close.

At first I thought Will was talking about people.

We had geese (both domestic and Canadian) as well as chickens. The geese left me alone after a few well placed kicks. The banty rooster on the other hand would come right back and attack again, no matter how far I launched him.

…..and dem ole boys have a temper!!!!!

But they are beautiful.

Canada geese are nasty critters.

remember it’s # before @ except after $

Just don’t honk them off.

One American prison has them between the two security walls. The prisoners will take their chances with the dogs, but not these terrors.

Don’t mess with the flocks of wild turkeys roaming widely in my community. There was actually an ‘in town’ bow hunting season.

Do you mean “thugs”, Will ?

“Canadian attack geesses”

They “DO” make great Guard Geese …… ;)

I’ve had trouble with both geese and swans.

While my dog was working at the hospital one spring day I took her outside to the grass, and we had to walk around a mama goose sitting on her nest. It took us too close to daddy goose, who I didn’t know was patrolling the parking lot. He decided to try to kill my dog, and I pushed her behind me and faced him down. It wasn’t pretty – we were about the same height when he went up on his toes. I was yelling, waving my arms, and actually backed him off. I took my dog to the basement level and held her on my lap for about an hour. Visitors in the hospital came to help calm her. Somehow, they have since managed to avoid having nesting geese any more outside at the hospital. There wasn’t one door we could go out safely when they were nesting. We stay hours – too long to ask a dog to just hold it.

Especially if mama is on the nest…