Being a Boykin Spaniel, I am a bird dog. And if there is something bird dogs both love and hate, it is birds. Be it an ostrich or a hummingbird, I am all about birds. I saw an ostrich on television once and my eyes just about popped out of my head. My expression was something like: what the f is that feathered freak of wonderfulness?

I digress.

Back on topic.

Birds represent so much. Flight, for example. Flight is associated with freedom. Sometimes my human thinks I can fly when I take a big lunge over a hedge or leap off the porch. Birds are also tasty. I like food a lot. They herald changes in the seasons. I love it when they fly overhead during the fall. I point and then bark. Geese fly in formation.

I have encountered many geese in my eight years on God’s green earth.

Two geese in particular resonate with me.

If I ever get another chance, we are going to have a run-in.

Do not tell my human about this anticipated reunion.

Let me tell you about our first interaction — the meeting of Boykin and geese.

Several years ago my human was hit by a car while on his morning run. I hate it when he runs because I am a Velcro dog. Where he goes, I feel compelled to go. We tried running together early on in our relationship. It did not work. When the fatty runs — which he needs to with his figure — I am left behind.

One day he did not come back.

My nightmare came true. I am always afraid that when he leaves he will not return home to me.

It was a Tuesday morning. Dude crossed a road. Avoiding a reckless and drugged driver, he ran into another vehicle. Luckily, the crazy runner in him hurled his body onto the hood of the incoming car. The move saved his life.

I did not see my human again until Friday.

Black and blue, he returned to me. I was a very good nurse dog. After pogoing for the longest time, I climbed into bed with him and never let him out of my sight.

For several weeks the tubby one had to take it slow. He started walking in the mornings again. After the casts were removed, he started to run again.

Because he could not drive for over a month and had been told not to travel, we could not venture up the country to our family place.

Both the human and I missed being home.

One Friday my grandmother came down to Mobile. She picked me up at the house and my human up at his office. The three of us drove up to the place.

I knew exactly where we were going.

The road to our family home is one I could navigate in my sleep. When we started the drive up the hill to the big house, I went berserk. I do this every time we approach the house. I jump up and down before racing the length and sides of the car.

The sight of the lane — and of me, for that matter — is something to behold.

About a third of the way up the drive, long before the crest of the hill upon which the house stands, I inhaled and nearly lost my mind.

Two geese were waddling down the lane.

I thought to myself: what in the hell has happened in my absence?

Squatters that are squawkers.

I was having none of that.

To add insult to injury, my family was delighted.

My human loves birds — especially geese. My grandmother hates birds, which is one of the reasons I love that lady. But she was enchanted in the moment because my human was so happy to see them.

My grandmother knows he has always secretly wanted a pet goose.

He also knows his family would disown him if he ever acted on that desire.

I looked at the two of them and could not hold it in any longer.

Nurse dog mode ended.

I threw the whole of my body — all thirty-five pounds — into the windshield.

Absolute chaos ensued.

The humans raised their voices at me and at one another. I was hurled to the back of the vehicle only to propel myself forward again toward those damn geese.

After several attempts, I had to admit defeat.

I even tried the old Ace Ventura dog maneuver of sticking my head out the window.

Unfortunately, the windows were closed.

I do sometimes wonder what the geese thought.

As we continued up the lane, my humans discussed those feathered emissaries of Satan. They concluded that the pair must be the geese that had long taken seasonal residence at a cousin’s pond down the highway.

Conversation continued about what a lovely welcome it was for my human — that horrible goose lover — and some concern for me.

Apparently an angered goose can cause real harm to a dog.

I wanted to cause harm.

Or maybe I just wanted to play.

Either way, I was fired up.

When we parked the car I was immediately placed on my lead. The human is no fool when it comes to my ways.

Soon enough I put the geese out of my mind, if only temporarily. There were toys to check, treats to eat, and dinner to enjoy.

This dog is a chow hound after all.

Before long the sun had set and it was bedtime. I like my beauty sleep. Rest was needed for reasons beyond vanity in this case.

Vanity is one thing.

Hunting is another.

I needed rest to get those geese.

The next morning began as most mornings do up the country. I awoke in my grandmother’s big sleigh bed. I was taken outside on my lead for a walk while keeping an eye out for those birds.

So as not to reveal my plans, I behaved charmingly.

Breakfast followed. I received treats and rested on a poof.

Normally I am given free reign of the place after my human returns from his run. The stubborn joker had started running again.

Lord knows he needed to.

Curves are nice in some places, but not others.

He was determined to mow grass too.

My grandmother knows sometimes you just have to let him do his thing. I watched angrily as he left the house without letting me loose.

Around lunchtime he returned. Of course he would return at a meal or cocktail time.

After lunch I was allowed outside.

Like a rocket I shot out of the house.

Freedom.

The smells, the sounds, the pasture — it all distracted me.

For a moment I forgot my mission.

But only briefly.

The geese had to go.

Unbeknownst to me, the feathered troublemakers had spent the morning down in the lowlands near the old brick pond.

Many old Southern houses have hollows nearby. The clay used to make bricks for the house and outbuildings was dug from the land itself. Our brick pit eventually filled with water and became a pond.

It sits in the middle of the fifty-acre pasture surrounding the house.

I love that pasture.

The brick pond is my favorite winter swimming hole. I especially enjoy the green slime that grows in it.

But because it was warmer weather, I never wandered that way.

So I missed the geese.

It was not until the next day — as we drove back toward town — that I saw them again.

Looking out the rearview mirror, I spotted the pair waddling through my kingdom.

The nerve.

Little do they know that I am all about a challenge.

Bring it on, feathers.

One day those two geese will be cooked.

Cartledge Weeden Blackwell III, “Cart,” is a historian and a curator. Blackwell was born in Selma, Alabama. He obtained an undergraduate degree from the College of Charleston and his graduate degree from the University of Virginia. He authored Of People and Of Place: Portraiture in Alabama (1870-1945): Reconstruction to Modernism for the Alabama Chapter of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America (NSCDA). His second book, Of Color and Light: The Life and Art of Artist-Designer Clara Weaver Parrish, is to be published by the University of Alabama Press in the winter of 2025.