No pun intended, well maybe just a little.\u00a0 No truer words ever spoken.\u00a0 Hard to believe that this business idea was started 25 years ago this upcoming Fall, and out of thin air.\u00a0 Everyone, and I mean everyone, thought I was nuts, literally. \u00a0My 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.<\/p>\n
So here we are, 2024.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Boomer was just a pup back then, but what a truly special dog he was.\u00a0 He was heaven sent for sure.\u00a0 Boomer was a grandson of a pure-bred working Border Collie out of the Scottish Highlands.\u00a0 I purchased Boomer at the ripe old age of 4 weeks from a dairy farmer in Blue Bell, PA on December 23rd<\/sup>, 1998.\u00a0 He was one of eight pups in the litter.\u00a0 I first met him in the rafters of a barn with many cows beneath.\u00a0 He and his seven siblings were surrounded by multiple hay bales that kept them safe and confined.<\/p>\n It was love at first sight for him and me of course.\u00a0 The rest is now history as they say, but what a history!<\/p>\n 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. \u00a0\u00a0John 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.\u00a0 He immediately began questioning me about Boomer.\u00a0 He began asking me if he was a purebred Border Collie.\u00a0 I, of course replied in the affirmative.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Initially, I was a bit perplexed by this conversation, not knowing where he was going.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I thought about it for a few seconds and thought, \u201cWhy not?\u201d\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I worked in healthcare and my day normally ended around 5pm.<\/p>\n The time arrived, so I scampered home to be greeted at the front door by an extremely eager Border Collie named Boomer.\u00a0 It was like he knew what was going on.\u00a0 To this day, I truly believe that Boomer knew exactly what was in front of him, and he couldn\u2019t contain himself.\u00a0 He truly was one of a kind, and definitely heaven sent.\u00a0 Boomer eagerly loaded up in my hockey transport mobile called a Toyota Land Cruiser, and we were off.<\/p>\n Ramblewood Country Club was only a mile and a half from our home.\u00a0 We arrived a few minutes later, and Mr. Goodwin was waiting patiently for Boomer and me by the clubhouse.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I was confused by this, and chuckling while the words came out of my mouth asking what this contraption was.\u00a0 John replied, \u201cI head straight for the geese with the stuffed animal leading the way.\u201d\u00a0 I had visions of medieval times when two knights would square off in a jousting match.\u00a0 He was embarrassed to admit that it didn\u2019t work and the geese just moved aside to let him pass.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Nothing ever worked he went on to explain.\u00a0 I was just standing there shaking my head in amazement as I never knew that geese posed such a problem on his course.\u00a0 It was their droppings that polluted his greens, bunkers, fairways, ponds, lakes, and parking lots.\u00a0 The geese would also attack the golfers during the Spring nesting season.\u00a0 It was obviously affecting the play on the course and the bottom line.\u00a0 Boomer and I loaded up on our golf cart and we were off.\u00a0 John led the way while Boomer\u2019s heart must have been flying out of his chest with excitement.\u00a0 I could just sense it.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t take long for us to locate the first gigantic flock of Canada geese that were tearing up the course.\u00a0 It was on Red Course Hole Number Three to be exact.\u00a0 I\u2019ll never forget the sight of what had to be three hundred geese spread out all over the fairway.\u00a0 You could barely see any grass at all.\u00a0 Boomer leapt out of the cart before I could even say a word.\u00a0 He was this fifty-pound hairy wrecking ball headed right towards the middle of the flock.\u00a0 As soon as he came over the crest on the hill, the geese spotted him as he sped towards them.\u00a0 Like dominoes, every goose, one after the other, took off for the sky above them.\u00a0 It was like a well-orchestrated symphony.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t hear myself think because of all the honking and flapping of hundreds of wings.\u00a0\u00a0 It was truly a sight to be seen.\u00a0 Within seconds, John\u2019s course was starting to be given back to him.\u00a0 John could not believe his eyes, and was overwhelmed with his own excitement.\u00a0 He could barely speak as Boomer headed off towards the horizon, or in other words, Red Course Hole Number Five where he must\u2019ve known there were more geese.\u00a0 Boomer couldn\u2019t have been more right.\u00a0 John and I were now following Boomer\u2019s lead.\u00a0 We lost Boomer behind some trees surrounding the large lake on Hole Five.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 We had to be there at least twenty minutes if my memory serves me right.\u00a0 Boomer finally exited the lake, glanced over at John and I, aggressively shook his thick coat, and took the lead again.\u00a0 Now the roles were completely reversed.\u00a0 Boomer was leading the pack, and John was pulling up the rear.\u00a0 John and I just shrugged our shoulders and smiled at each other, and tried to keep up with this SUPERDOG!<\/p>\n Red Hole Number Six had a hundred geese from the tee box to the green.\u00a0 Boomer cleared that hole like he was sweeping a ballroom floor.\u00a0 End to end, side to side and everywhere in between.\u00a0 He was finding geese where even we couldn\u2019t see them.\u00a0 Our jaws literally dropped as we watched history being made in this newly created Canada goose control world as far as we were concerned.<\/p>\n Boomer finished up in around two minutes, turned and looked at me and John briefly, and took off like a cruise missile.\u00a0 Where he was headed was anyone\u2019s guess.\u00a0 Ramblewood County Club is a large professional course with three nine-hole courses linked together on hundreds of acres. \u00a0This was no easy task for a pack of dogs let alone one dog named Boomer.<\/p>\n Needless to say, John and I were left speechless.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t a feather within miles of this course this beautiful sunny fall day.\u00a0 Moving forward, Boomer and I would continue to visit the course everyday around the same time, and early on the weekends.\u00a0 He so looked forward to it, waiting impatiently by the front door as the time neared each and every day.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 He liked it all and was becoming a celebrity real fast.\u00a0 Boomer did not discriminate when it came to food.\u00a0 He was a real foodie.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Looking back, I think the gentleman was serious.\u00a0 Everyone was so grateful to now have their course back free of geese and their droppings.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 One of the gentlemen, after hitting his ball, approached Boomer and me.\u00a0 I was thinking to myself, oh boy, here we go.\u00a0 I thought Boomer and I were going to field our first complaint due to Boomer\u2019s heavy breathing from just clearing twenty-seven holes.\u00a0 I was fortunately mistaken.\u00a0 The gentleman approached us and introduced himself as Mike Tiagwad.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He also stated that he was personally spending over ten thousand dollars annually just to repair his landscape.\u00a0 I just nodded my head like a kindergartener listening to a story.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know where he was going with this.\u00a0 He eventually asked me for my business card.\u00a0 This is where Geese Chasers was truly born.<\/p>\n I looked at Mike a bit perplexed and asked him if he knew me.\u00a0 He replied, with a confused look on his face and said, \u201cNo.\u201d\u00a0 I, of course obliged, and gave him my business card.\u00a0 I was working in healthcare as a Surgical PA locally at the time.\u00a0 He looked at the card, and with the same confused look on his face, asked the question that changed me and my family forever\u2026.\u00a0 \u201cDon\u2019t you chase geese for a living?\u201d\u00a0 I smiled, looked at my boy Boomer and replied, \u201cWell, maybe I do now.\u201d<\/p>\n In the following days, Boomer and I visited Mike\u2019s other two country clubs and his residence.\u00a0 All three sites hired us immediately, with smiles on their faces.\u00a0 We still service Mike\u2019s development twenty-five years later never missing a beat, or a Canada goose.\u00a0 To this day, when people see our trucks or dogs working, they all have ear to ear grins on their faces.\u00a0 People absolutely love our business, and love even more talking about it.<\/p>\n In the first five years of business, our gross revenue had doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled one year without fail.\u00a0 Today, we have offices in fifteen territories located in eleven states throughout the U.S.\u00a0 This crazy idea which was conceived out of thin air is now a true force in America.\u00a0 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. \u00a0We have been featured in the NY Times, London Times, every major network, Discovery, Animal Planet, and more.<\/p>\n Geese Chasers continues to raise the bar in the Canada Goose Control industry.<\/p>\n Geese Chasers truly is \u201cThe ONLY Name in Canada Goose Control.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Days are Long but the Years Fly By No pun intended, well maybe just a little.\u00a0 No truer words ever spoken.\u00a0 Hard to believe that this business idea was started 25 years ago this upcoming Fall, and out of thin air.\u00a0 Everyone, and I mean everyone, thought I was nuts, literally. \u00a0My parents told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"\nProof of Concept<\/h3>\n
Making Goose Control History<\/h3>\n
A Business is Born<\/h3>\n