Canada geese all right for Dofuss the goose

Rick Jacobs is familiar with the sounds of waterfowl. His family owns a home on Jump Off Joe lake, 35 miles north of Spokane, near Valley, Wash. The lake teems with ducks, swans and Canada geese. One morning three years ago, he heard a noise he couldn’t identify. “It sounded like a prehistoric shriek from something out of Jurassic Park,” he recalled.

He looked out his window. A domestic gray goose was strutting across his lawn. He’d never seen and certainly never heard this goose before.

He and fellow lake residents Dick and Jeannie Krueger surmised this stranger was an unwanted pet someone had dumped at the lake.

Jeannie christened the goose Dofuss because, as she said, “He do fuss!” Dofuss is a goose with attitude. When Jeannie’s husband offered him some corn, the goose greedily snatched at the food, then arched its neck and hissed at Dick.

As that first winter set in, Dofuss disappeared, and the folks at Jump Off Joe assumed he wouldn’t survive.

When spring arrived, the flocks of Canada geese returned to nest in the marshy reeds along the lake, where they would raise their young until September. To the amazement of the lake residents, Dofuss reappeared and met the geese at the water’s edge. He watched them fly above the lake. He followed them forlornly along the shore calling out to them in his unique voice. Dofuss is a Canada goose wannabe.

But, not only does he look and sound different than the Canada geese, he flies differently too.

“Dofuss only flies a few feet off the ground,” Jacobs observed. The other geese soar above him while he squawks pathetically from his lowly elevation.

Each year the Kruegers and their neighbors observed his quest for acceptance.

“Finally,” Dick recalled, “Dofuss found a family that would tolerate him.” The lake residents watched with amusement as Dofuss became an “uncle” to six goslings this spring. Now, he proudly escorts the young on daily outings and baby-sits them when their parents leave the nest. Each evening at dusk Dofuss and his adopted family glide around the lake in a graceful goose flotilla.

For a few months of the year Dofuss has a family. When fall comes and the Canada cadre migrates, the residents at Jump Off Joe will leave food out for the lonely gray goose left behind and hope he makes it through another winter.

Where did he come from? Why does he stay? These questions remain unanswered. Dofuss declined to be interviewed.