Press coverage of the border collie method, including our own franchise owner on camera, and how it connects to the service we run across southern Connecticut.

Canada goose control using trained border collies has been covered by television stations, national newspapers, and trade publications over the past several years. Geese Chasers Southern Connecticut serves Fairfield, Middlesex, New Haven, and New London counties under franchise owner Mike Mallek, who also appears in the first story below. Each piece is grouped here by what it actually adds, followed by how those findings shape the programs we run on [finish this sentence before publishing].

Our Franchise Owner on CBS2

In August 2018, CBS New York covered a village fighting a resident goose population around its interconnecting lakes, after residents had already tried motion activated sprinklers, fishing line fencing, and fake coyotes without success. The village ultimately put dogs to work on its bay beach to keep the sand usable for families. Mike Mallek, who owns both the Long Island and Southern Connecticut Geese Chasers franchises, explained on camera that birds gradually learn a property is no longer safe once a dog works it daily. The segment also reported the state wildlife agency’s position that Canada geese are protected under state and federal law and that permanent removal requires permits, which is exactly the constraint Connecticut property owners face.

Read it: CBS New York: Long Island Town Struggling In Battle Against Canada Geese

National Newspaper Coverage

The New York Times: Why Border Collies and Not Other Breeds

An April 2023 interview with founder Bob Young explains the mechanism. Geese react to border collies because the dogs resemble arctic foxes, one of the few natural predators the birds have. Young told the paper he had tried Australian shepherds and Labs first and the geese ignored them. The article describes a twelve week tracking study the company ran, which found two chases kept geese off a property for roughly two weeks while four chases extended that to about four weeks. On damage, it notes geese pull grass out by the roots and leave droppings acidic enough to shift soil pH, so affected turf often returns as tough weeds. It cites a 1,500 percent population increase across North America over four decades.

Read it: The New York Times: His Business? Hiring and Managing Dogs to Chase Geese.

The Times of London: How the Population Got This Large

Published a week after the New York Times interview, this UK article takes the long view on how the Canada goose went from a species in decline to a year round resident. It traces numbers from roughly 250,000 in 1970 to about 3.5 million by 2010 and identifies the Migratory Bird Treaty Act as the federal protection behind that recovery, and the reason property owners still cannot simply remove the birds. It also notes that corporate parks and their landscaped retention ponds effectively built ideal goose habitat, and that droppings can carry bacteria including E. coli.

Read it: The Times: Want to get rid of a goose? Take a gander at these border collies

Business and Trade Coverage

ROI-NJ: How Service Is Scheduled

This February 2023 profile is the most practical of the group for facilities managers, because it covers logistics rather than origin story. It reports that the number of ponds on a site drives the plan more than total acreage, and identifies mid-February through mid-March as the point by which service should already be running, ahead of nesting. That timing lines up with the March through June mating and nesting window we work against in Connecticut. Contract figures cited in the article describe the New Jersey operation rather than Connecticut pricing, which is set here based on the property.

Read it: ROI-NJ: Meet Bob Young, South Jersey man who stumbled into service

Golf Course Industry: Growth Into the Northeast

Written for golf course superintendents, this October 2021 trade piece noted that expansion into Connecticut was expected later that same year. It reports the founder’s first border collie cleared more than 200 geese in a single week on the original course. The audience matters here: superintendents treat goose damage as a turf problem, not only a sanitation one, which is the framing that fits Connecticut clubs and courses.

Read it: Golf Course Industry: Geese Chasers opens in Northern Virginia

Broadcast and Video Features

Several segments show the dogs working, which tends to be more convincing than any written description for property managers weighing a program. CBS2 New York produced a piece on the dogs clearing geese in the city, and AOL’s In The Know series ran a feature on the company. View the CBS2 segment on chasing geese, or see the In The Know feature. Additional coverage includes a segment on Nutley, New Jersey hiring Geese Chasers for its parks system, and a Paws For Pets feature on a South Jersey news program.

What the Coverage Means for Connecticut Properties

Read together, the reporting supports three points that shape how service is run here. Geese in the region are largely resident rather than migratory, so they do not leave on their own. Federal and state protections rule out most permanent removal without permits, which narrows the realistic options. And results come from repetition, not a single treatment, because the birds have to reassess the property over many visits.

That is why the work is structured as programs rather than one time visits. Handlers service properties seven days a week, multiple times per day, and the initial flock typically clears in four to twelve weeks. After that, daily maintenance keeps new resident and migratory birds from settling in, since their first experience on the property is being moved along. An on-call option covers properties that only need periodic clearing, with response inside an hour during service hours. Where handlers find roosting piles, night runs clear birds that arrive after dark.

Nesting season runs March through June and is handled separately. Where a nest is found, egg addling is done under permit from the state wildlife agency, ideally within the first seven to ten days, since the gestation period is only about 28 days. This matters on a schedule: once a nest hatches, goslings cannot fly for roughly 70 to 90 days, and it is illegal to harm them or relocate the family, so the property is committed for that entire period. Canada geese are also habitual nesters that return to successful sites year after year, which is why acting early in the season changes the following year as much as the current one.

Geese Chasers Southern Connecticut

Geese Chasers Southern Connecticut provides humane Canada goose control for commercial properties, golf courses and clubs, residential communities, and municipal sites across Fairfield, Middlesex, New Haven, and New London counties. The Humane Society of the United States has identified trained goose herding dogs working with a handler as the most effective way to move geese off a property. Site evaluations are free, and every program is built around the property’s layout, water features, and how it is actually used.