2012-10-27 – Lefty is from Canada. We got him around New Year’s Day of 2007 from a breeder in Thunder Bay, Ontario who breeds Australian Shepherds as working dogs. Their job? Scaring Canada Geese away from people’s property.

Lefty’s original name was Napoleon. We got him when he was two months old, but that was apparently sufficient time for him to develop a racial hatred of Canada Geese. We don’t have many Canada Geese at our house, but when we go on walks he is ever watching the skies. He barks up trees and chews at the bark. We have one tree in our backyard that is gnawed from the ground to a height of six feet – and consequently dead. Someday I plan to cut down the top of this tree and carve the bottom into a totem of a dog barking at a large bird.

The last two days have been in the forties. The summer is over. But the sky has been clear and the sun bright. And when I’ve walked Lefty into the park I’ve seen flocks of Canada Geese in the soccer fields. It’s not unheard of to have geese in the park, but it’s not a frequent occurrence. And that’s a good thing. Lefty’s breeder had a good business chasing geese because geese can leave the soccer field pretty disgusting.

Our park is more often host to seagulls from Lake Michigan and ducks when the weather is particularly wet. But yesterday morning and this morning there were large gaggles of Canada Geese.

(Geese come in gaggles, don’t they?)

Canada Geese are very brazen. They are large and they let you get fairly close before they fly off. Close enough to give a dog on a leash a chance to exercise his inbred heritage.

Not one of the Canada Geese had a green card, by the way.