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Just call them the unofficial World Cup wonder dogs.
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The two border collies — Sally and Ben — have been put to work saving Toronto soccer pitches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup by managing and deterring geese, who can drop up to two pounds of waste daily, an obvious hazard to both world-class athletes and professional turf.
“So the whole premise is the dog just doesn’t chase the geese like you would do, or a normal dog,” said geese management technician Gareth Williams, the owner of Border Control Bird Dogs Inc., for almost the last two decades in Stirling, Ont, about two and a half hours east of Toronto. “Our dogs are trained. They’re border collies, which are obviously just by nature, herding dogs. So instead of herding sheep, we change that to geese, and then they stalk the geese and kind of stare at them, what they call collie eyes, how they move calf or sheep around, and the geese start believing that they’re predators on the side. When we move the geese, the common term is hazing. We’re not allowed to harm the geese in any way. It’s completely non-lethal. There’s no environmental impact. It can take the (border collies) 20 minutes to move 100 metres. They’re literally taking two steps at a time, almost like they’re in slow motion.”
In the case of two-year-old Sally, she’s been primarily working at the new FIFA World Cup training facility at Centennial Park in Etobicoke, as opposed to the game venue of Toronto Stadium (BMO Field) downtown with seven-year-old Ben on backup duty.
“We go twice a day,” says Williams of their early morning and afternoon visits. “And if we see more geese, we’ll up our visits. Obviously, they’ve spent millions of dollars putting down all this turf that the geese find very quickly. Right now, it’s nesting season and the babies are being born. I think the geese are mainly in the river right behind the (Centennial Park facility) and they’re worried, of course, once the babies are then born, they’ll wander up and start eating the grass. That’s the kind of issue we probably will have.”
Dogs aren’t being used at Toronto Stadium
Williams said the more enclosed Toronto Stadium, where the six FIFA World Cup matches will be held starting Friday, doesn’t currently have the same issue with geese, who prefer open fields.
“They’re not having so much an issue there right now,” Williams said. “We’ll be on standby for that. Hopefully, that one does stay clear. I don’t think the geese are going in there right now because they’d fly into a spot that would be more of a kind of open area.”
Williams said he’s heard World Cup game hosting-cities like Dallas are actually using high-tech robotic security dogs, but not for pitch protection.
Instead, the robo-dogs are assisting with tournament security like inspecting suspicious packages, conducting perimeter checks, and monitoring hazardous materials.
“I saw that story and I thought, well that’s a bit weird, that’s robots,” he said. “But actually right here in Toronto, we’re using proper dogs to do a completely different task. Anywhere with any green space, we (at geesemanagement.ca) kind of do.”