One of the Most Popular Teammates at SEED Campus – and a Very Good Boy
Take one look around the nearly 200 acres that make up Davey’s SEED Campus, and it’s easy to see why the former golf course is ideal for training and research. However, with abundant vegetation and open water, it’s also a popular spot for geese.
Enter, Bill the border collie. He’s an eight-year-old former sheep herder who came out of retirement last fall to become Davey’s official “goose dog.”
So far, he’s had a couple of great goose chases and has scoped out his vast new home while bonding with his handler Geoff Blind and SEED crew.
Controlling Geese at the SEED Campus
Blind, who as Superintendent of Grounds oversees SEED Campus and Davey’s corporate grounds, worked with a border collie at a golf course before coming to Davey 20 years ago. He explains that “goose dogs” became popular in the early 2000s as a sustainable and effective way of controlling geese on properties like golf courses. For a property like SEED, goose droppings pose the main issue.
“We early on started talking about a dog because it’s an old golf course, and the geese – they know,” he says. “There’s a lot of vegetation here, there’s open water, and that’s all they need.”
Davey's MVP (Most Valuable Pup)
It’s been about three months since Bill arrived in Ohio, and he’s made quite an impact.
For one, he might be Davey’s most popular teammate. “Every time I go over to corporate, the first thing people ask, is, ‘How’s Bill?’” Geoff says. “He’s definitely a morale booster. Everybody knows about Bill.”
Bill even appeared as the special guest on Davey Chairman, President and CEO Pat Covey’s December Town Hall.
But Bill also has a job to do, and Geoff senses that he’s already starting to understand his role.
“There’s a group of about 10 geese that were landing here pretty regularly,” Geoff says. “When they start honking … You can see Bill’s ears go up. He knows, ‘These are geese, and that’s what I’m here for.’”
Bill loves meeting people. And if you want to be his friend, Geoff advises, “Keep some good dog treats on you – just don’t feed him anything that’s bad for him.”
