It was 6:00 a.m. in the newly opened Residence Inn. I was staying there for an Evan Graham Retriever Training seminar. From my third floor room, I decided to take the side entry stairs down to air Strider. The hotel had only been open four days and was set in the middle of a shopping-center-sized construction site with straw-covered dirt. Instead of airing on the newly laid sod, I stepped off the sod onto the solid dirt and walked Strider there. He bounded ahead of me and disappeared briefly over a small mound. Suddenly, there was honking and the sound of flapping wings as a flock of geese was disturbed by Strider’s presence. Some flew off, but others ran toward me with Strider hot on their heels. They crossed the parking lot and went down an embankment. Strider couldn’t hear my calling for the noise and I didn’t want to get loud – it was 6:00 a.m. and I was standing right outside the first floor guests’ windows! I ran over to the embankment and saw a large drainage channel – 20 feet across, 200 yards long. The birds had reached the water and were swimming down the channel with Strider in pursuit. Finally, the distance between them lengthened enough, and the adrenaline slowed enough, that he heard me calling. He turned around and swam back down the channel and out and we continued our walk, without further incident I was hoping.

As Strider went behind the mound for a second time, a half-grown gosling popped up the side and went zig-zagging toward the channel with Strider hot on her heels. Over the side of the embankment she went, and I waited for Strider to return when she hit the water. Return he did, with the half-grown gosling firmly in his mouth. He ran to my side, did a flip sit at heel and looked up at me with eyes twinkling. “Look what I found, Ma!” “Good dog,” I said as I took the unhurt gosling from him and tucked it under my arm tightly.

What to do now…. 6:00 a.m. in a hotel parking lot with a wet dog and a gosling under my arm. Quickly, before anyone discovered my plight, I bounded up the stairs with Strider at my side jumping and a goose under my arm hissing at the dog at each jump. At the third floor landing, I put Strider in a “sit” in the stairwell while I ran into the room, grabbed the car keys, and ran back down to put the wet dog in the car. I walked to the front of the hotel (why did I have to park right outside the front doors?), opened the tailgate with the remote from across the lot, almost there -oops, being met by gentleman in night manager jacket. “Are you a guest here,” he asked in a gruff voice. “Yes,” I replied. “Don’t worry about the goose, it’s not hurt and I’ll put it back right after”…. He turned away as I was speaking and went back inside. Oh, no, I thought, let’s get rid of the gosling before the police arrive. With a wet Strider now in a crate in the van, I spy my camera. No one will ever believe this, I thought, so I pick up the camera, clumsily point it at myself holding the gosling and press the shutter button a few times. I put the camera down, run back to channel and let the gosling go. She runs down the embankment, hits water, and swims toward the flock at the other end.

Whew! Time to get ready for Day 2 of the seminar. But, before I can get back into the building, I’m met by the general manager who was on duty when I checked in the previous night. Expecting the worst, I gave him my full attention as he proceeded to lament that he had been in another part of the hotel and had missed the show on the security cameras that his night manager called him about! He then asked if I thought the geese would stay away, for they were fouling the area and he was tired of cleaning goose poop. He handed me his card and told me how every general manager of a new Marriott property has to write an article for the worldwide Marriott newsletter on the unusual things that happen during opening week. He wanted to use Strider’s exploits as his story. So, Strider gets his name in print and I get a future Marriott stay for it! Presented is the very-poor-quality, but living proof photo of the gosling under my arm and one of the above-named culprit, Strider, still smiling about the experience.

Oh, and the Evan Graham Seminar was excellent!!