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Edited on Fri Aug-27-10 09:08 AM by MineralMan
My parents own a small, unprofitable citrus farm in California. It was their dream when I was growing up, and they finally realized it about 45 years ago. They've rarely made much from the crop, but they love the place, and my father, at 86 years of age, is still out working on his tractor in the rows.
Almost 20 years ago, they established a couple dozen ducks as a snail-reduction measure, and tossed a pair of domestic white geese into the mix. Very efficient snail destroyers they all turned out to be. The gander, though, grew to become very territorial and often intimidated guests at the farm. And that's where this story really begins.
My wife and I were visiting for Thanksgiving, not long after I had heard about the irascible gander. Even my father, who is hard to intimidate, was unable to keep the goose from charging at people, flapping its wings and hissing. If you turned your back on this white terror, you could be sure that you'd get a painful bite on the legs or butt. My father said that he was about to give the gander the ax, but I asked if I could take a shot at calming it down. "Good luck with that, son!"
Well, we were there for a week, so I began my campaign. I took over the daily scattering of chicken scratch near the pen the ducks and geese inhabited in the evening (there are coyotes in the area). As expected, the gander, whose name was Mike, came for me, wings flapping, beak open, and hissing all the way. My natural instinct was to flee from this bird that was dead set on harassing me. Instead, I stood my ground, and faced the goose. I raised my arms and flapped right back at the charging gander. This had little effect, and soon, I was being buffeted by flapping wings and pinched on the legs by the bird's beak. But I stood there and let it attack me, but didn't move an inch. After about 2 minutes, it wearied of its efforts and waddled off toward the pen. I followed, and scattered the chicken scratch for all the birds. The gander, as usual, joined in the crowd picking at the food.
The next day, I repeated the whole thing, was attacked by the goose, and stood my ground, gathering a few more bruises in the process. It seemed like the goose gave up the attack a little sooner, though. For the next 4 days, I repeated this, ending each session by scattering the feed for the birds. Each day, the attack grew a little less intense, and lasted a shorter time.
Finally, on the day before my wife and I had to head home, I went out again to face the attack. It didn't come. Instead, the gander waddled up to me and just stood there. I pulled a handful of the scratch out of the bag, and held my open palm out, at goose level. Sure enough, the once angry goose started snuffling up the food, right out of my hand.
After my wife and I had returned to our own home, I called my father for our usual weekend phone chat. "How's Mike?," I asked him. Well, he told me that Mike had stopped rushing him, but was coming up to him and standing there, expectantly, instead of flapping its wings and hissing. It had worked.
By sticking to my plan, persistently standing my ground, and associating myself with a reward, the irascible Mike was converted from an angry harasser to a calmer, more reasonable sort of gander. I had collected some bruises in the process of taming Mike, but it was worth it in the end. Sometimes, the same thing works in human discourse, too. It's harder, because people are somewhat smarter than geese, in most cases. It can take longer for the process to work, but the principle is still the same: have a plan, stick to the plan, be calm, ignore the harassment, and carry some sort of simple reward. It doesn't always work, but it does sometimes. It's worth a try. Non-violent resistance has proven to be very effective as a political tool.
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