goose

from a distance it looks like a snow-white, fluffy monument to cuteness. get closer and it turns into a winged neighborhood thug that stretches its neck out parallel to the ground and charges at you hissing, a "come here, you" beast that calls all its goose buddies over in a heartbeat and marches on you as a gang. so yes, it looks cute from afar, but the goose's foot tells a different story.

its feathers really are beautiful, so soft. star of the duvet and the pillow, they were even pens once upon a time. but the owner of those feathers is nowhere near as soft. for a goose, "my territory" isn't a boundary, it's a philosophy of life. anyone who sets foot on its pond, its lawn, even the three square meters of dirt it happens to be standing on, is the enemy. that includes the hand that feeds it every day. a goose doesn't know gratitude, it knows title deeds. though if you're the one feeding it, it does know you and love you, because you're on its deed too. back when i kept geese, they even went after the dogs that barked at me. i like to think they were saying "excuse me, brother, you're barking at the guy who feeds us, our big bro, in our neighborhood?"

humanity caught on to this early. legend has it rome was saved from the gauls by the racket the geese made (see: capitoline geese). and today a prison in brazil has retired its dogs and put geese in their place. they patrol between the inner fence and the outer wall, and if anyone tries to escape they wake up the whole valley. on top of that, they're apparently cheaper than dogs and need no training. you don't have to teach a goose anything to make it a guard, it's born that way. and here's the other side of it: you can win a dog over with meat and bones, but a goose is different. even if you feed it, even if you two are close, bother it while it's walking its deed and it'll say "got a problem?" and claw your face. so you can't bribe it. the only things they're loyal to are their deed and their kin.

the best part is how the idea came about. the prison staff got cornered by an angry flock of geese during a barbecue and said "these guys could do the job." so the geese didn't get hired through an interview, they got hired through a raid.

whoever calls someone a "silly goose" has clearly never tried to share a lawn with one.

in short: love it from afar, take its picture, admire its feathers. but don't go near its pond. that pond is not yours.

calm
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angry
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