Goose Heartsick After Canine Bestie Disappears In North Carolina

LILLINGTON,NC — There has to be a children’s book in the works about an unlikely friendship between a dog and a goose in Harnett County, North Carolina. A goose — technically a gander — named Sal isn’t all that likeable. He hisses, chases, pecks and bites everyone in his path. Everyone, that is, except his bestie, a bulldog named Sadie.

Constant companions, they explored the area around Henry Huff’s cabin together in a remarkable interspecies bond that caused a lot of chatter among the residents in the the Lillington area.

Sadie and Sal belonged more to each other than to an individual person, it seems. They showed up together about four years ago, and Sal initially ruled over four ducklings and a chicken, but they all disappeared — or fell prey to foxes in the area, according to stories about the unusual friendship unfolding on social media.

They recently brought a kitten into their pack, but it was the bond between the goose and the dog that caught everyone's attention. Nobody ever saw one without the other. Sal was Sadie’s protector and comforter.

“That goose,” Wanda Holder, one the neighbors, told the News-Observer, “takes his long, long neck and rubs on that dog.”

Now Sadie is missing and Sal is forlorn. He waddles around honking and, Huff said, “moping.” Sometimes, he goes to the area where he last saw his canine companion and waits for Sadie to reappear.

At least Sal has the kitten to look after, Facebook user Sky Po Po commented on a post on the Lost & Found Pets of North Carolina page.

"So now without Sadie around Sal still has a cat that she feels the need to take care of," the post said.

The grieving Sal, also called Gary by some, seems to have warmed some to humans.

"The goose has been different," Charles Bull, who lives in the neighborhood, told the News-Observer. "He's been over in my yard quite a bit. I'm actually petting the goose, which I've never done before."

The pair’s friendship lit up the internet after Sadie disappeared. Here’s how it happened:

On one of their jaunts on April 24, Sadie and Sal wandered farther than they ever had and caused a stir on North Carolina 27, a busy highway outside Lillington. The pair were near Western Harnett High School when David Zapata, of Sanford, tried to help Sal get Sadie out of the road. More people stopped to help, and Sal turned on them.

As Zapata relates it on his Facebook page, Sal “started chasing everyone around and trying to bite anybody that got near the dog.”

“You can’t make this (expletive) up,” he wrote, describing the scene as both comical and scary.

An unidentified woman slipped a collar and leash around Sadie’s neck and drove away.

Sal gave chase for a while, but then gave up.

“It sorta broke my heart to see the two separated, it really did,” Zapata wrote. “You could tell they were pals.”

Zapata thought the woman who took Sadie might look for dog’s owner, but so far, that hasn’t happened.

Courtney Hayter, who works in the area and often saw Sal and Sadie strolling around together, said she hopes the woman sees a post on the lost pets page and returns Sadie.

Those commenting were sympathetic to the goose.

“Poor goose,” Jennifer Gordon commented. “If someone can confirm he is there we will try to pick him up. The dog was probably the only thing keeping him alive from predators.”

Other suggested that someone contact a bird rescue group to help out Sal, but others insisted the goose has a home.

“I’ve seen some horrible things happen to geese the past couple of weeks, nothing wrong with people caring enough to make sure this goose is safe and with his buddy,” Donna Saucier Cole of Charlotte wrote, clarifying her suggestion that Sal be captured and sent to a group specializing in waterfowl. “The two together are safer than apart.”

Photo of Sal and Sadie courtesy of David Zapata