The Days are Long but the Years Fly By

No pun intended, well maybe just a little.  No truer words ever spoken.  Hard to believe that this business idea was started 25 years ago this upcoming Fall, and out of thin air.  Everyone, and I mean everyone, thought I was nuts, literally.  My parents told me later on in life that they both thought that I was going to be institutionalized walking away from a six-figure career in medicine after seeing how much I sacrificed and how hard I worked along the way.

A Dog is Born

So here we are, 2024.  Geese Chasers was an idea that came upon me, and Boomer, of course (the true Founder of the company), organically while clearing Ramblewood Country Club in Mount Laurel, New Jersey one beautiful Fall Day in 1999.  Boomer was just a pup back then, but what a truly special dog he was.  He was heaven sent for sure.  Boomer was a grandson of a pure-bred working Border Collie out of the Scottish Highlands.  I purchased Boomer at the ripe old age of 4 weeks from a dairy farmer in Blue Bell, PA on December 23^rd, 1998.  He was one of eight pups in the litter.  I first met him in the rafters of a barn with many cows beneath.  He and his seven siblings were surrounded by multiple hay bales that kept them safe and confined.

It was love at first sight for him and me of course.  The rest is now history as they say, but what a history!

Proof of Concept

The idea of chasing Canada Geese from properties using a Border Collie was initially presented to me while throwing a softball to Boomer at a local church field by a Mr. John Goodwin, President of Ramblewood Country Club in Mount Laurel New Jersey.   John was driving by with his wife and son, and just happened to see me with my son Kyle having some necessary fun with our soon to be founder of the company, Boomer. John stopped the car, got out, and approached me, introducing himself and his family.  He immediately began questioning me about Boomer.  He began asking me if he was a purebred Border Collie.  I, of course replied in the affirmative.  He went on to tell me all the issues and problems he was experiencing at his once beautiful golf course regarding the Canada geese and their droppings.  Initially, I was a bit perplexed by this conversation, not knowing where he was going.  He also explained that he had just read about the use of purebred Border Collies to successfully control Canada geese in one of his recent golf trade journals.  John started asking me if I thought Boomer would chase the geese off his golf course, and if I was willing to bring him out to give it a try.  I thought about it for a few seconds and thought, “Why not?”  Boomer would be able to run the entire twenty-seven-hole course and possibly solve a major problem that was plaguing this gentleman and his customers for a long time.  I instructed Mr. Goodwin to leave a golf cart out for me with a key in it, and I would meet him there tomorrow after I finished up at work.  I worked in healthcare and my day normally ended around 5pm.

The time arrived, so I scampered home to be greeted at the front door by an extremely eager Border Collie named Boomer.  It was like he knew what was going on.  To this day, I truly believe that Boomer knew exactly what was in front of him, and he couldn’t contain himself.  He truly was one of a kind, and definitely heaven sent.  Boomer eagerly loaded up in my hockey transport mobile called a Toyota Land Cruiser, and we were off.

Ramblewood Country Club was only a mile and a half from our home.  We arrived a few minutes later, and Mr. Goodwin was waiting patiently for Boomer and me by the clubhouse.  He was seated in his own golf cart with a ten-foot pole next to him draped over the front of the cart with, wait for it, a stuff animal to look like a Border Collie dangling from the end of it.  I was confused by this, and chuckling while the words came out of my mouth asking what this contraption was.  John replied, “I head straight for the geese with the stuffed animal leading the way.”  I had visions of medieval times when two knights would square off in a jousting match.  He was embarrassed to admit that it didn’t work and the geese just moved aside to let him pass.  He went on to say that every gimmick and idea he came up over the last year, to rid his course of the geese, failed miserably time and time again.  He explained that he tried the dog cut-outs, fishing line strung across the ponds, ground sprays, flashing lights, noise makers, mylar balloons, etc. etc. etc.  Nothing ever worked he went on to explain.  I was just standing there shaking my head in amazement as I never knew that geese posed such a problem on his course.  It was their droppings that polluted his greens, bunkers, fairways, ponds, lakes, and parking lots.  The geese would also attack the golfers during the Spring nesting season.  It was obviously affecting the play on the course and the bottom line.  Boomer and I loaded up on our golf cart and we were off.  John led the way while Boomer’s heart must have been flying out of his chest with excitement.  I could just sense it.

Making Goose Control History

It didn’t take long for us to locate the first gigantic flock of Canada geese that were tearing up the course.  It was on Red Course Hole Number Three to be exact.  I’ll never forget the sight of what had to be three hundred geese spread out all over the fairway.  You could barely see any grass at all.  Boomer leapt out of the cart before I could even say a word.  He was this fifty-pound hairy wrecking ball headed right towards the middle of the flock.  As soon as he came over the crest on the hill, the geese spotted him as he sped towards them.  Like dominoes, every goose, one after the other, took off for the sky above them.  It was like a well-orchestrated symphony.  I couldn’t hear myself think because of all the honking and flapping of hundreds of wings.   It was truly a sight to be seen.  Within seconds, John’s course was starting to be given back to him.  John could not believe his eyes, and was overwhelmed with his own excitement.  He could barely speak as Boomer headed off towards the horizon, or in other words, Red Course Hole Number Five where he must’ve known there were more geese.  Boomer couldn’t have been more right.  John and I were now following Boomer’s lead.  We lost Boomer behind some trees surrounding the large lake on Hole Five.  We finally caught up to him as he did a full-on SUPERMAN, or should I say SUPERDOG, into the lake, making a splashdown reminiscent of Apollo 13.

Clearing this sizable lake took time, but Boomer did not stop swimming until everything with a feather attached to it took to the friendly skies.  We had to be there at least twenty minutes if my memory serves me right.  Boomer finally exited the lake, glanced over at John and I, aggressively shook his thick coat, and took the lead again.  Now the roles were completely reversed.  Boomer was leading the pack, and John was pulling up the rear.  John and I just shrugged our shoulders and smiled at each other, and tried to keep up with this SUPERDOG!

Red Hole Number Six had a hundred geese from the tee box to the green.  Boomer cleared that hole like he was sweeping a ballroom floor.  End to end, side to side and everywhere in between.  He was finding geese where even we couldn’t see them.  Our jaws literally dropped as we watched history being made in this newly created Canada goose control world as far as we were concerned.

Boomer finished up in around two minutes, turned and looked at me and John briefly, and took off like a cruise missile.  Where he was headed was anyone’s guess.  Ramblewood County Club is a large professional course with three nine-hole courses linked together on hundreds of acres.  This was no easy task for a pack of dogs let alone one dog named Boomer.

Needless to say, John and I were left speechless.  We finally finished this initial clearing, or should I say Boomer finally completed this monumental job within 30 minutes, while receiving a standing ovation from all the golfers, members, and staff who witnessed this amazing dog and what he had just accomplished.  There wasn’t a feather within miles of this course this beautiful sunny fall day.  Moving forward, Boomer and I would continue to visit the course everyday around the same time, and early on the weekends.  He so looked forward to it, waiting impatiently by the front door as the time neared each and every day.

Members would greet Boomer and me almost every day after each clearing with large cups of water, hamburgers, chicken, and anything else they thought Boomer would like.  He liked it all and was becoming a celebrity real fast.  Boomer did not discriminate when it came to food.  He was a real foodie.  I recall, early on, I had a conversation with one of the long-standing members who said that they needed to construct a statue of Boomer on Red Hole Number Five.  Looking back, I think the gentleman was serious.  Everyone was so grateful to now have their course back free of geese and their droppings.

A Business is Born

One day, Boomer and I were sitting behind the tee box on White Hole Number 18 trying to be as quiet as possible as a foursome of gentlemen were teeing off.  One of the gentlemen, after hitting his ball, approached Boomer and me.  I was thinking to myself, oh boy, here we go.  I thought Boomer and I were going to field our first complaint due to Boomer’s heavy breathing from just clearing twenty-seven holes.  I was fortunately mistaken.  The gentleman approached us and introduced himself as Mike Tiagwad.  Mike explained that the other two courses where he was a member and his private residence in Mount Laurel were inundated with geese and they had no solution.  He also stated that he was personally spending over ten thousand dollars annually just to repair his landscape.  I just nodded my head like a kindergartener listening to a story.  I didn’t know where he was going with this.  He eventually asked me for my business card.  This is where Geese Chasers was truly born.

I looked at Mike a bit perplexed and asked him if he knew me.  He replied, with a confused look on his face and said, “No.”  I, of course obliged, and gave him my business card.  I was working in healthcare as a Surgical PA locally at the time.  He looked at the card, and with the same confused look on his face, asked the question that changed me and my family forever….  “Don’t you chase geese for a living?”  I smiled, looked at my boy Boomer and replied, “Well, maybe I do now.”

In the following days, Boomer and I visited Mike’s other two country clubs and his residence.  All three sites hired us immediately, with smiles on their faces.  We still service Mike’s development twenty-five years later never missing a beat, or a Canada goose.  To this day, when people see our trucks or dogs working, they all have ear to ear grins on their faces.  People absolutely love our business, and love even more talking about it.

In the first five years of business, our gross revenue had doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled one year without fail.  Today, we have offices in fifteen territories located in eleven states throughout the U.S.  This crazy idea which was conceived out of thin air is now a true force in America.  The future has never been brighter for Geese Chasers as we continue to grow at a rate of ten to fifteen percent annually which mirrors the annual estimated growth of the Canada goose population in North America.  We have been featured in the NY Times, London Times, every major network, Discovery, Animal Planet, and more.

Geese Chasers continues to raise the bar in the Canada Goose Control industry.

Geese Chasers truly is “The ONLY Name in Canada Goose Control.”