Butte-Silver Bow owns a special dog hired to do a unique job of chasing geese away. The Parks & Rec Department got one-year old Patti, a Border Collie Australian Shepard mix, when he was five weeks old with the purpose of training him to scare the geese off of Highland View Golf Course.
Patti graduated from obedience school Friday. Parks & Rec said having Patti will save the county thousands of dollars in damage each year.
"Ten to twelve to 13,000 dollars damage in the greens and what it cost to fix them and the loss of revenue from people not coming out to golf when you know all the geese are out here," said golf course superintendent John Mulcahy with the Butte-Silver Bow Parks & Rec Dept.
The county said the major geese season usually comes flocking in around September and Patti has already shown promise in the last round of geese that came through recently. The county said it has tried other remedies to get rid of the geese with no success but believe Patti will be the solution that sticks.