A man in bib overalls came charging around the corner of my apartment building this morning wildly waving his arms and shouting at the top of his voice. Canada geese had invaded our lawn. The geese greeted the man, whom I shall call The Gooser, with an indignant cacophony of honks and squawks as they took flight. While it’s fun to have a yard full of God’s wild creatures, what goes in grass at one end comes out greasy slugs at the other. Geese eat a lot of grass!

I suspect a part of The Gooser’s job requires keeping this place looking good. You can’t train a goose to use a litter box like a cat and, unlike a dog, the geese will foul their own den. Soon we’ll have goose crap in the lawn, slime on the street and slippery sidewalks. How can you charge a decent rent if your campus is carpeted with crap?

But, the Gooser might as well try to swat away all mosquitoes of a humid Minnesota twilight as permanently frighten the geese off our lawn.

I had a black lab once, Lila, who loved eating goose nuggets plus she enjoyed chasing the geese. Lila loved the fresh droppings. She relished the frozen nuggets of October and November. She ate the freeze dried treats of April.

I shared no kissy-face moments with Lila!

However this disgusting option might run afoul of the city’s dog leash-law.

A number of fox inhabit the edges of the living space here on our island. Geese get nervous, and won’t frequent areas with high vegetation that obstructs their view of potential predators. However, last winter management advised residents not to feed the fox. It seems fox had learned to sneak in when the automatic garage doors opened to admit cars into the ground floor garage. Residents found fox in the garbage bins and fox sleeping on the warm hoods of their cars. Besides, I think, long grass violates the city’s weedy-yard ordinance.

So what can you do? Hire a pack of labs? Let the grass grow and encourage the fox? Or, chase the shitters (oh, sorry), chase the critters?