In the movie “Caddyshack,” Bill Murray plays a greenskeeper who goes to war against the gopher that’s been digging up his golf course. Enraged and unhinged, Murray attacks like a World War I sapper, burrowing into the rodent’s lair and stuffing the walls with explosives. When he finally detonates his little bombs, the orange-and-black cloud that blooms above the willow trees gives the movie a climax more fitting to an action picture than a comedy.
Except for one thing: The gopher survives.
There’s a real man-versus-pest war going on at American golf courses today. The enemy is the Giant Canada goose, a species of waterfowl that founds colonies in water hazards, then nibbles up the fairways, digs holes in the greens, waddles in front of oncoming golf carts and treats the entire course as a latrine, a big problem when you realize that geese relieve themselves up to 30 times a day.
Ever since golf course living became a trend among geese, greenskeepers have been using tactics almost as explosive as Murray’s to scare them off. Some have fired propane cannons whose loud noises scatter the birds. Others have set inflatable alligators in the ponds.
There are “evil eye” balloons that stare at the geese, like that predator the owl, and there’s a foul-tasting grape juice that, sprayed across a course, discourages the birds from dining. One golf course even tried firecrackers to scare off the birds. But the geese always return, just like the gopher in “Caddyshack.”
Because none of the manmade solutions has worked, golf courses are letting another species have a run at their goose problem: dogs, specifically border collies, a breed developed in Scotland to herd sheep.
Harold Frederickson first used a border collie when he was golf course superintendent at Edgewood Valley Country Club in LaGrange, going mad trying to figure out how to roust the 500 or 600 geese living on his links.
“We tried everything,” said Frederickson, who went through the whole anti-geese arsenal, from inflatable alligators to firecrackers. “The border collies were the only thing that works 100 percent. The geese never came back in the hordes that we started with. There’d be 10 or 12 coming back. We didn’t have the damage to the greens anymore. There wasn’t poop all over the parking lots and sidewalks.”
Frederickson loved the dogs so much he decided to go into business with them. After retiring from Edgewood Valley last year, he and a friend, Sue Hagberg of Palos Park, started Migratory Bird Management, which unleashes border collies on courses besieged by geese. Right now, they’ve got a two-dog kennel: Ruby, a 2-year-old who is the senior and star employee, and 2-year-old Dan. The dogs usually visit each golf course twice a day, to make sure the geese don’t get too comfortable.
Not long ago, we followed Ruby as she went on patrol at Timber Trails Golf Course in Indian Head Park. Frederickson let her out of her cage in the back of his sport utility vehicle, and she trotted ahead of him on the end of a 25-foot leash, searching for geese. When master and dog spotted a flock of about 50 gathered in a hollow between fairways, Frederickson let Ruby off the leash, and she began stalking her quarry.
A border collie’s first task is to intimidate. Ruby paced forward, in a crouch that might have exploded into a run at any second. But she didn’t chase the geese right away. She wanted to let them sweat, or whatever it is geese do when they get nervous. So she gave them “the eye.”
Unlike most dogs, which have dark, solid pupils, border collies have an orange ring in their eyes, like the halo around the sun during an eclipse. It seems to have an intimidating effect on sheep and geese, Frederickson explained. This flock began to line up facing Ruby, as though preparing for a battle, but one border collie can stare down dozens of times its weight in geese. As soon as Ruby charged, every goose on that course took wing.
They didn’t simply circle and land a few holes away, as they might have if they’d been fleeing a charging golf cart. They flew over the belt of trees on the edges of the course and disappeared from sight. Border collies are so frightening to geese because they remind the birds of foxes, their natural predators, Hagberg said. And unlike other breeds, such as the Labrador retriever, which is trained to chase down wounded game, border collies don’t get bored if they can’t catch the geese.
“They’re workaholics, and they get satisfaction from doing what we want them to do,” Hagberg said.
The dogs’ herding instinct is so strong that they’ll even try to bring order to inanimate objects, said Frederickson, who keeps Ruby at his home in Palos Heights. (Dan stays with Hagberg.)
“They will herd anything,” he said. “My wife has flowerpots out on the deck, and Ruby will push them all together. We’ll give her four or five balloons, and she’ll pick them up and carry them into a pile. She’ll even herd ants on an anthill.”
It doesn’t take long for geese to figure out that there’s a predator on the course and look for somewhere else to lay eggs and raise goslings. Flagg Creek Golf Course in Countryside began hiring Ruby last fall, and she has already chased away most of its geese.
“He was bringing out the dog every day, so I would say the difference was ASAP,” golf pro Andy Bendy said. “Once the dog came, the geese just went into another area. Every time there was a new flock, the dog would chase them away.”
There are several reasons geese have become such nuisances on local golf courses. The first is that a golf course provides the perfect habitat. It has water hazards easy for geese to land in, because they aren’t surrounded by tall plants, like real ponds. It has short grass, which geese love to eat. And its fairways form long, open vistas, which allow geese to see predators from far away. What’s sauce for the golfer is sauce for the gander.
“They like golf courses because the grass is well cared for,” said Scott Garrow, a district wildlife habitat biologist with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. “To them, it’s like a salad. And they have proximity to water.”
Like all migratory birds, geese are federally protected from destruction by man. Except for a fall hunting season, it’s illegal to kill a goose, no matter how badly it’s fouling your beautiful golf course. (Most golf courses are in cities and villages, which ban the discharge of firearms, so hunting is out as a means of goose control.) As a result, the population of Giant Canada geese in the Mississippi Valley Flyway, which includes Illinois and all of its golf courses, increased from 50,000 in 1969-70 to 384,000 in 1994-95.
“The neat thing about the dogs is they probably have the least environmental impact” compared to traditional forms of goose control, Garrow said. “No noise, no chemical additives that might bother someone.”
Before Ruby came along, the goose flock at Flagg Creek was so big “we lost the third tee,” Bendy said. “They ate all the grass off it, all the geese did. They would go onto the greens, and they would kind of dig their nose into the green. They would leave holes 10 inches wide. People didn’t want to hit the ball because they might hurt them. They complained about the droppings.”
Although Ruby has reduced the goose problem at Flagg Creek, a dog may have to be present for several years before geese go away for good. That’s because geese return to their own birthing grounds to breed and build nests, so Flagg Creek won’t be completely safe until the last generation hatched there passes away.
Because of this need for eternal vigilance, several golf courses, including Edgewood Valley, Frederickson’s old course, have border collies on staff. Thanks to the persistent herding of Edgewood Valley’s dog, Roy, who was acquired when Frederickson was still superintendent, “as of last summer, we did not have any resident geese,” said Greg Clark, assistant superintendent of grounds.
“They keep trying to come back, and then they basically give up,” Clark said. “I think it’s to the advantage to have the dog here. If they hire in, the dog’ll be there for a little while, and then the geese’ll come back. They’ll get into the habit of knowing the dog’s not going to be there.”
Edgewood Valley bought Roy, already trained, for $3,000, and the staff there cares for him. Migratory Bird Management charges about $500 a week to bring Ruby or Dan around twice a day to an 18-hole golf course.
But buying a dog isn’t like buying a lawnmower or any other piece of machinery, Frederickson cautions. There are feed costs, veterinary costs. Border collies, more than most breeds, also demand work and attention. If they don’t get it, they become bored and destructive.
Frederickson says he expects Ruby and Dan to be very busy this year, especially now that the geese are gathering for mating season. Migratory Bird Management has landed work at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Amoco headquarters in Naperville and Silver Lake Country Club in Orland Park, among others. He expects to be working his tireless border collies 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
“Travel, that’s going to be the big thing,” said Frederickson, who is not as indefatigable as his employees. “If we could teach the dogs to drive, it’d be an easier profession.”
Not even border collies are that smart.
