(Click image for larger view)

The Skinny: Davey's employee newsletter often featured problems and solutions faced by some of the 50+ offices throughout North America. For this story, I explored how Davey's Washington, D.C. office solved a client's goose infestation problem with an unusual method - a border collie.

Style: Light tone that plays on the unusual nature of the solution.

Excerpt:

A Creative Solution
An open mind helps residential office solve nagging goose problem

Jeremy Wright has it made. A crew member from the Washington, D.C. residential office, he helps maintain one of its largest accounts - the Lockheed Martin Federal Systems office complex in Gaithersburg, Md. And he works side-by-side with a crew member who lives to work.

Wright's co-worker is a border collie named Dot. Together, they've relieved Lockheed Martin of one of its most nagging problems - Canadian geese infestation - without smelly sprays or inhumane treatments. Just good ol' fashioned herding did the trick.

Natural Surroundings

Storm management ponds behind the Lockheed Martin facility create a pleasant environment of water and grass that both employees and Canadian geese find attractive. The geese flock to the area, then wander closer to the office facility, building nests and creating a messy environment.

"The problem was becoming tougher to tolerate," said Chris Klimas, district manager of the Washington, D.C., residential office. "The numbers of geese were growing steadily, and the threat to employees during the birds' mating season - when pairs attack anyone near their nests -- was a potential liability. We needed something effective."

Conventional methods, such as grape extract spray, didn't work. Then a Lockheed Martin executive saw an article about border collies protecting golf courses from geese infestations. The collies, bred with a herding instinct, run in circles to gently group geese together and direct them away from an off-limits area. The dogs don't attack or harm the geese; but the birds see the dogs as a threat and move away. The border collie program had shown success on the golf courses; working together, the two companies developed a plan to try the technique at Lockheed Martin.

Back