For beyond cute, you should meet my pet goose 'Sylvester'. He is 14 years old and runs free range on my land. He has survived coyotes, racoons, bobcats, etc. I have to replinish his social circle with goose friends every year. Every year he, alone, survives. Sylvester would protect me with his life. He is a true friend with a loyalty and discrete thinking that matches any family canine. I love this little guy.
Your 'Sylvester' story reminds me of another I heard recently.
A friend of ours was visiting his in-laws recently after being married. It was the first meeting of father-in-law with their daughter's groom and he watched his step wherever he went so as not to leave a bad impression.
He had been sleeping and keeping idle in a bedroom while the parents were out of the house a good part of the time and discovered as old Daisy pump BBGun, similar to one he had as a kid.
He went out for a walk, and there were perhaps one or two BBs left in the antique BBGun, which he affectionately continued to pump up to see if it still functioned. Along the way he happened to see a large male quail scratching for food along the trail a good fifty feet away.
In a childish moment, he slung the Daisy as though he were the Rifleman, and squeezed the trigger. To his surprise the Daisy shot well and believe it or not he happened to hit the quail in the neck, killing it instantly.
He felt a bit foolish, in that he really hadn't anticipated actually killing the bird, merely thought he would get it to fly. He buried the evidence hoping nobody would become disenchanted with his behavior.
That evening over a family dinner, conversation turned to each person's daily activities, and the son-in-law, now feeling more a part of the family confided he had found the BB Gun and similar to one he had as a young boy and that it indeed still worked. After recalling the chance shot he had happened to take as the story took on a momentum of its own, a dead lull fell over the table. The Father-in-law dropped his fork as he stared at the son-in-law, his eyes speaking volumes of disgust and then excused himself from the table without a word.
His silence lingered for a day or two, when the son-in-law was finally told by other family members that the elder gent had taken a liking to a covy of quail that lived nearby and he faithfully fed them every morning to the point the male quail leader would eat from his hand. The happenstance BB had killed his favorite pet.
The son-in-law had taken the father-in-law back to where the dead quail had laid and they buried it back near the house, but for many a year, the son-in-law noticed the relationship with the father-in-law never was the same. A common question over the years was, 'why did you kill it?' To which there was no good answer other than a stupid notion at the wrong time.
Now imagine someone kneeling beside Sylvester, putting one arm around him and using it to raise his head and then pouring grain down his throat. That's the way geese are fattened. Do you really think anyone could do that to a goose without protest if it was at all painful? The goose would beat you half to death.
So9