Last Updated on: 19th April 2026, 03:50 pm
Steve was helping me out finding links for my WaddleLoo post and came upon the story of Dom’s kindred spirit. “Why do you say that?” I hear you asking. “Was he a golden retriever? Maybe he was a guide dog.” Nope. He loved chasing geese a wee bit too much, and chased one out onto a not so stable ice drift in the middle of Thunder Bay harbour.
So now that I’ve got you truly confused, let me tell you a story. Domino doesn’t seem to get too interested in a lot of wild or domesticated animal life. He doesn’t care about squirrels, or birds, or even some other dogs. But the one thing he cannot resist is geese. Yup, those same aggressive, lunging, hissing geese I was talking about before. I’ll never know if this is true, but one day when we were walking home, I swear I felt him lunge for a goose. Dom, buddy ol’ pal, you don’t want to do that. That is not a moving dog toy. I can’t remember if this was before or after the incident where the geese were chasing us, so I can’t be sure if he was feeling protective of me, or if he decided this goose was an irresistible flying thing.
But the craziest story involving Domino and geese happened last Thanksgiving. My sister’s husband was very sweet and kept offering to take Domino outside so he could do his duty while I was at their cottage for the weekend. But he wouldn’t bother with a leash. He’d just go out with him and let him loose to do his thing. Over the course of the weekend, not once, but twice, Domino got distracted from what he went out to do and went in hot pursuit of a goose! He ran and he ran. The goose went into the lake, and Dom dove right in after it! I guess he was channelling his inner retriever. Thankfully, my mom saw what was going on, yelled for him and he came right back, but that meant he needed to be towelled off and kept outside until he dried so he didn’t leave wet trails all over the cottage. Like I said, this happened twice in a couple of days!
After reading this story, I’m very thankful we have never been somewhere cold where there could have been thin ice for Domino to walk out on, because I think the temptation of the geese might be too much.