About Alice and Douglas

                                                                Alice and Douglas

                                                                     Alice and Douglas

             Alice winds up our bed every night. She is quite the down comforter. By morning there’s down aplenty on the bed spread and some pretty big feathers too, along with two webbed feet, two wings and a bright orange beak. Why, it’s a real live goose, awaking after another night of fowl dreams. The snowy white Alice sleeps at the foot of our bed every night in our log home by the Weber River.  

         A goose around the house is a comforter of sorts even if it’s not one of the blanket varieties.  They make wonderful pets, they’re very calming as house pets. Who would have thought it, until the day a clutch of nine eggs laid in a vacated nest by the river bank. Precious decided it was time for a house pet. When the nine eggs hatched, she snatched up the cutest of the fluffy goslings and brought it inside. That was five years ago and now Alice is a part of the family. Two foot-tall she struts around the house like she owns the place, nibbling at her food in a big dog dish on the kitchen floor or gazing out the patio door at the other geese, ducks, deer and turkeys, banished to a life in the back yard.

          Miss Alice isn’t content to be just a home birdy; she’s also quite the gadabout. Maybe you’ve met her at the Roy Farmers Market or at a school, home improvement center or craft store. We have pictures of her at old Faithful. She was watching and thinking, “Can I go swimming now?” 

           For some reason she seems to like the color blue. When she meets children wearing blue She always wants to nibble on their shirts.

           Although Alice is very clean, we don’t take Alice places that other house pets can’t go, like grocery stores or restaurants. Every errand with Alice in tow takes two or three times longer because everybody wants to pet her. Double takes are the rule of the day when we take Alice out of town. At stop lights people roll down their window and yell at us, 

            “Can we take a picture?”

           One of Alice’s many adventures was posing for photographs with visitors at The Amazing Raise, an annual fundraiser that benefits charitable groups in Ogden Valley. Alice and a leopard Appaloosa acted as representatives for the Wasatch Front Chapter of the Back country Horsemen of Utah, of which we are members. Horses can be intimidating, especially to small children, but Alice is very approachable and well-behaved. She really thinks she’s in charge of everything. Geese often have a bad reputation for nipping or pinching at people, but Alice just tries to “preen” folks by running her bill along their skin.

            Everyone is surprised when they meet Alice playing “Mother Goose” at the annual community baby shower for the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah. She’s a very sweet goose. A lot of geese can be a little bit temperamental and sort of testy about things.

         Just seeing a goose walk on a leash is kind of a novel thing you don’t see that every day. Rango says,

       “Alice is probably the most-pampered goose anywhere. She likes things done her way, she’s cute and she knows it, for instance, she has her own cat bed for sleep over at the Wildlife Dirt Center and a tennis shoe she likes to sleep with, and she is very aware that there are treats packed in her carryover bag. If I don’t give her the treats she is obviously offended –and she sulks.”

         I thought about certifying Alice as a therapy animal so she could cheer up animals in hospitals or nursing homes. She was always great with animals when Precious use to substitute teach and took her to visit special education classes. One little mountain goat would hug her and stroke her and Alice would just let her do anything she wanted. Animals talk to each course. There can be no doubt about that; but I suppose there are very few people who can understand them. I never knew but one man who could. I knew he could, however, because he told me so himself. He was a middle aged, simple hearted miner who had lived in a lonely corner of California among the woods and mountains, a good many years, and had studied the ways of his only neighbors, the beasts and ate birds, until he believed he could accurately translate any remark they made. This was Jim Baker. According to Jim Baker, some animals have only a limited education, and use only very simple words, and scarcely ever a comparison or a flowery figure; whereas certain other animals have a large vocabulary, a fine command of language and a ready and fluent delivery; consequently these latter talk a great deal; they like it; they are conscious of their talent and they enjoy showing off, such as blue jays. Baker said, 

       “After long and careful observation he had come to the conclusion that crows had the best fundamentals in language among birds and beasts. There’s more to a crow than any other creature. He has more moods and more different kinds of feelings than other creature; and, mind you, whatever a crow feels he can put into language. And not just language, either, but rattling, out–and-out book talk and bristling with metaphors, too, just bristling. And as for command of language, you never see a crow get stuck for a word even if it’s in Spanish. No man ever did. They just boil out of him! And another thing; I’ve noticed that no bird or cow, or anything like that uses as good grammar as a crow. You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well a cat does but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on garage nights, and you’ll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it’s the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t   it’s the sickening grammar they use. Now, I have never heard a crow use bad grammar or very seldom; and when they do, they are as ashamed as a human; they shut right down and leave.

       Someday—who knows? You might even read about Alice and crows in the pages of a best sale kid’s book. We have chronicled her real life escapades in what could be title, “The Adventures of Alice the Goose and Douglas the Crow.”

        As a pet, Alice is more like a cat than a dog, She doesn’t play fetch or know any tricks, and she may or may not come when you call her name. But he will come a-waddling across the room at the sound of Precious shaking a resealabe plastic bag filled with dry cat food kibbles. 

        “Alice do you want goose treats?” The goose mama calls, and she dives right into Precious hands to gobble up the goodies. 

        She is a novelty. We like to be a little bit different; I always like to carry on honking conversations with her. Precious likes to hold Alice on her lap and pet her. I just kind of melt when the goose looks at me with those big blue eyes; she brings a lot of joy, a calming effect, uniqueness.

        She loves getting out and meeting people. When we go on vacation, if at all possible we try to take her with us. Vacationing is how Alice ended up at Yellowstone National Park two years ago, charming tourists and park rangers alike.  As Old faithful was going off she was watching and thinking can I go swimming now? Folks were so intrigued they watched the goose and not the geyser.

        Six years old she travels in her own car seat a wicker basket that either sits on Precious lap or between the seats. You see the first rule of any car trip is Alice always rides up front. Try plunking her in the back seat and wild fits of wing flapping will ensue. She also has her own stroller, easier for getting around in parks and stores than all that walking on her short little legs. She picked out the basket seat for her stroller all by herself, on an outing to Hobby Lobby in Layton. We showed her several different baskets, but Alice would get up and walk back to white one with pink trim and sit down in it.

To be continued...

KARL WALLACE DDS   

To read more Karl Wallace goes to:                           w.w.w.karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com