As Ruthie began her late-morning shift in Walla Walla’s Pioneer Park, her ears were alert, her gaze wide, but she uttered no sound.
The 2-year-old black-and-white Border collie crept through wet grass and mud puddles, her excitement expressed as quiet determination.
Spotting her prey — a flock of ducks assembled on the south side of the park’s largest pond — Ruthie crouched into a predator posture and stalked toward them. The ducks took notice and began to scatter, most taking refuge in the water.
Had Ruthie’s handler, Colby Kuschatka, not kept her on a leash, she might well have dived in after them.
But what the birds don’t know is that Ruthie wouldn’t have hurt them.
“She just goes after them and leaves them alone once they’re up and flying,” Kuschatka said.
Ruthie, who wears a red vest that reads “service dog,” is there to shoo away the waterfowl, particularly Canada geese that have overrun the park in recent years. The gaggles have been grazing on the turf — preventing grass from taking root — leaving droppings that contaminate the grounds and waters, harassing visitors and frightening young children.
“We keep hearing from the community that something needs to be done,” said Andy Coleman, the city’s Parks & Recreation Department director.
The city had tried putting up reader boards asking parkgoers not to feed the geese. The signs helped a little but didn’t solve the problem, Coleman said. The city, which didn’t want to use cruel or lethal methods, learned the Walla Walla Country Club had seen success with a goose-mitigation dog.
By March, the city had bought Ruthie and put her to work.
Ruthie lives with Kuschatka and his family. Kuschatka, as well as his daughter and son, learned how to give commands such as “lie down” (which means “stop” or “stand down”) and “that’ll do” (“come back”). The city covers Ruthie’s food and veterinary care.
Lovable and smart, Borders can make decent pets, “but they need a job, too,” said Anne Devine, Ruthie’s trainer and the owner of Concrete-based Wingin’ It Goose Control.
“They’re very work-driven, and that work is bred into them — it’s instinctual,” she said, “and, unfortunately, we have a lot of people buying them as pets and don’t give them a job to do other than maybe chasing a ball, which isn’t a job.”
Kuschatka and Ruthie visit Pioneer Park — a popular park in Walla Walla — at least once a day, sometimes more when the weather is nice. The handler tries to vary their arrival times; if Ruthie shows up at the same time every day, the geese will adjust their schedule, he learned.
“They’re intelligent enough that they’ll shift their pattern,” he said.
At first, the birds — which are used to leashed dogs roving around — didn’t take Ruthie seriously. That changed when Kuschatka removed the leash.
“The geese recognize her now from a distance, and they’ll start taking off just at the sight of her,” he said.
At one point, Kuschatka said, the grassy area south of the large pond was teeming with well over 100 geese. Once Ruthie became a park regular, the geese’s numbers plummeted.
Someone recently asked Kuschatka where the geese are going. “I’m like, ‘I don’t know, but somebody’s having a goose problem right now,’” he said with a laugh.
About a fifth to a third of the geese still haven’t gotten the message, Kuschatka estimated.
“There are some that, I think, (are) probably just really deeply rooted here, born here, they’re nesting here, and they don’t want to let it go easily,” he said.
On that morning, Ruthie encountered a brood of nine baby geese, called goslings, waddling with their parents.
Eventually, the offspring will be chased away like the others, Kuschatka said. But for now, he gave them space lest Ruthie panic the parents and separate the family. He made sure they saw Ruthie but kept her at a respectful distance.
Once the birds retreated to the large pond, the grown-up goose nearest Ruthie, who stared at them from the water’s edge, faced her and hissed.
“That’ll do,” Kuschatka told Ruthie, who has a life jacket on order so she, too, can enter the water.