Recently, dog silhouettes have been placed in parts of BSM campus.

The design is fairly basic—— it is is just a black silhouette of a dog. The way they work is pretty simple: the dog is made of corrugated plastic and mounted on a spring, so when the wind blows it gives the illusion that the dog is running.

Athletic Director Mr. Jerry Pettinger described several advantages to the new additions to the fields. Foremost, they are working: he has noticed a real drop in the number of geese that decide to hang around on the fields.  “They’re good because they keep all the birds and other animals off the field,” freshman soccer player Andrés Jiménez said.  

Pettinger also explained that the cost also makes this solution very beneficial since a pack of three dogs costs only about $137.50 per field, making total cost to the school a mere $412.50 for four clean fields. Since they are all weather-proof, there is minimal maintenance required.

Girls’ varsity soccer players have a different reason for liking the newest maintenance method. “When we warm up before the games, we run a lap, and we all pat the dogs,” senior Claire Van der Heide said.

These dogs can fool more than just the geese. “I thought they were real dogs for a moment,” sophomore Sydney Wilharm said.