Paging Mr. Bender and the Aflac Brigade.
Posted on 08/03/2004 12:48:22 PM PDT by Willie Green
KITTANNING -- Residents tired of geese that foul a park will get some help from their four-legged friends.
The borough council approved a motion last night that will allow dog owners to walk their pets in Riverfront Park.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Geese can swim and fly better than dogs, so the dogs aren't much of a threat.
IMO they are mean, nasty, poopy, dirty SOB's. Especially when they decide to visit my yard for grazing.
MKM
I thought this meant they were going to have guys w/serious working dogs herding/deliberately driving away the geese.
They do that in some places. Our "town center" lake has a man w/his Border Collie chasing out the geese and ducks off the piers and banks.
"There's no sense taking your dog to the park if you gotta scoop the poop..."
Huh? So you'd leave crap anywhere you took your dog? You're saying it's only worth going outside your yard if you don't have to scoop? Sounds a bit disingenuous to me.
A remmington 870 12ga could solve this problem in a weekend.
One border collie, properly trained, and their problem is solved.
Getting rid of geese is not much of a problem, really. I used to have geese where I worked. It is a large government facility with lots of nice green lawns that the geese just love. I got tired of hearing complaints about them, so I decided to see what I could do about the problem.
At lunch time, I would go out walking, as was my custom. When I saw a flock of geese, I would approach the flock along a tangential line, driving the outermost geese toward the center of the flock. Twice around the flock, and you have a nice, compact group of birds, much closer together than the really like to be. A couple a quick steps toward the center of the group is all it takes to get them all in the air.
Once the geese are airborne, they have to form up and organize before they can look for a place to land. By that time, they are usually many miles away, and somebody else's problem.
So I got rid of my geese and got a little excersize to boot. People laughed at me for a while, calling me the human border collie, but they really like not having any goose poop around. All it takes is having somebody get off their butt on a daily basis to chase the birds away.
"Geese can swim and fly better than dogs, so the dogs aren't much of a threat."
I think the point is that dogs tend to naturally keep away various animals. I know it's true in my backyard. Once the animals know there's a dog out there alot, they tend to avoid the area.
And the goose concern is usually cuz of heavily fouled water banks and immediate environs. Making it completely unattractive to human visitors. This doesn't mean keeping them totally out of the park, just reducing them from the now-heavily used banks so there's not as much goose garbage.
My dog is half Border Collie and half Blue Heeler, so he is both.
He doesn't bother with the geese, though. He prefers humping the other dogs.
No, I think it's discourteous to let your dog poop on the sidewalk, pathway or ballfield... places where people are walking...
but if he goes a little bit off to the side somewhere, like next to a bush, it's no big deal. Poop is one of life's minor unpleasantries that you have to deal with reasonably. IMHO, too many people simply have unreasonable expectations of living in a utopian world without poop.
LOL...."Everyone Poops" came to my mind with that last post.
Way off the beaten path mite be OK, but everywhere where people frequent - that's not right. And that's what parks are - you spend time on grass, not just paths! So yes, generally, you should be cleaning up after the dog in your average every-day park.
Paging Mr. Bender and the Aflac Brigade.
Nah... just about every park I've ever been in has always had some kind of little out-of-the-way spot that's infrequently used by people. All you gotta do is look around a little to figure out where it is. That's where you walk your dog and let him sniff around and do his business. No problem, it's all biodegradable anyway.
"Pet owners have been warned to keep their animals under control after two dogs were killed by a territorial swan in a park lake."
All I am saying
Is give shotguns a chance!
Well, it does make sense to take your dog to the park, scooping the poop is only a problem if the dog poops, and one would not want one's dog to be constipated? However, you are right about the leash, any dog who wants to chase or herd Canadian Geese has my permission to be off leash.
The word seems to have gotton out to the geese, when they see my border collie, even on leash they move on. Border collies have been enlisted in the war on geese for some time.
The true solution IMO is to place a bounty on geese or let people eat those that they kill. I am sure some on this site have good recipes.
That might work.
Kittanning is just a crappy little river town that straddles the Allegheny perhaps 30~40 miles upriver from Pittsburgh. Despite the economic hardships of being in the rust belt, it looks like the locals have put forth quite an effort to spruce up their riverfront. Here's a couple pics of what it looks like:
This doesn't look like a great hunting spot to me, although I suppose it could be done safely if you kept your aim out toward the river and not in toward town. But then, what do I know? I fish a lot, but I'm not much of a hunter. What do you think?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.