Canada Geese: feathered friends or poop-happy foes?

The most significant difference that separates humans from all other earthly life forms is the consciousness of how we dispense bodily waste. It is unacceptable among social circles to relieve ourselves voluntarily - the lone exception being the baby pool.

Scientists also confirm the theory of evolution cannot be proven until a family of monkeys is seen using a toilet not under duress or in a circus, but out of their own free will.

This chasm causes a culture clash among humans and the rest of the animal kingdom in many walks of life. The battle is prevalent in our daily life: dog feces on the sidewalk, bird droppings on your Honda and of course, goose poop on our fairways.

Golf courses that border large bodies of fresh water make for an ideal setting - but are succeptible to goose invasions of which the golf world can seldom cope.

There are various trains of thought on how to coexist golfers and goose, the first being complete extermination of these discourteous poopers.

A kinder, gentler method involves the infamous “goose dog", who patrols the course like a playground bully, chasing off its feathered trespassers.

I feel sorry for Canada Geese especially, because even though golfers love the intrusion of wildlife on their round of golf, whether it’s a majestic blue heron, deer or bear.

But no one likes the Geese, due to their sheer quantity and frequency of bowel movements. A few weeks ago I was playing with a buddy whose worm-burning 3-wood zinged a goose in its side so hard several of its feathers flew up in the air and the wounded bird let out a squeal pitched somewhere between an old, Volkswagen Bug car horn and a Roseanne Arnold grunt. It gingerly limped to safety somewhere in the nearby forest, but it’s a safe bet that goose left its droppings on the fairway for the last time.

I think us pretentious, potty-trained golfers can all agree that if it weren’t for the poop, we may be able to enjoy a round of golf where loads of geese roam the fairways with us harmoniously. If YouTube has any intellectual value at all, it’s that there is hope animals can be trained to use the facilities, from cats to dogs.

So maybe there is hope that one day, golfers can walk the same grasses as the evolved, potty-trained Canada Geese - for it was their land long before the golfer’s.