Man trains dogs to clear geese from World Cup pitches

Gareth Williams, who grew up in Winklebury, is spending his summer gently moving geese off football pitches in Canada, using dogs trained not to chase, but to stalk and stare.

“All the media coverage is remarkable,” he said. “I’ve had all the national press, radio, and TV approach me for interviews about my dogs and geese.”

Now 56, Gareth left Basingstoke in 2000 “for a new adventure” after working as a loss adjuster for the National Farmers’ Union. That move took him to Ontario, where he bought a sheep farm, and, eventually, stumbled into a niche career few could have predicted.

Sally at the World Cup training pitch (Image: Gareth Williama)

The idea came after watching a TV programme about a dog with an unusual career in the United States.

“I saw a TV programme in the US, someone had trained a Border Collie to round up geese in Central Park,” he said. “A friend had a similar problem, and I thought we could do the same with my own dogs.”

What followed was the creation of a business built on instinct — quite literally.

“Border Collies are a sheep dog, and they move, not by running, but by stalking and staring at the geese,” he explained. “We’ve re-trained our dogs to stalk the geese, who start thinking they are predators.

“It’s not a magic wand, they do still return, but they are much less likely to.

Gareth with Jamie (Image: Gareth Williama)

"It's great for me, because the geese usually go next door, so I get a new customer," he joked.

His dogs, Ben and Sally now dubbed his “World Cup dogs,” are currently working at training facilities in Toronto, where newly built pitches have attracted an old problem.

“All of these new fields have been built in existing parks, and they’ve always had a goose problem there,” he said.

“They don’t want geese on their new grass, because geese can consume about 4lbs of food and they crap out 2lbs. So you’ve got two problems there, and you don’t want Harry Kane to get his boots dirty.”

While the World Cup contract is relatively small compared to his wider work, which includes parks, golf courses and even cemeteries, its global profile has put his unusual profession in the spotlight.

“It is absolutely bizarre, quite a niche job,” he said.

A collie stalking a goose (Image: Gareth Williama)

Despite the rise of robotic dogs being used for security at some World Cup venues in the United States, Gareth is clear that there is no substitute for the real thing.

“The robot dogs are just in the US. They are used for security, they’re actually nothing to do with geese,” he said.

“Border Collies are born to work, they love working.”

And while the working dogs live in specially built kennels, he says they are very much part of the family — especially once their working days are over.

"The retired ones live in the house,” he said. “But they are all a part of the family.”