Wednesday, March 31, 1999

By DARRELL GLOVER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

A Green Lake goose shot in the head with an arrow two weeks ago has recovered and is about to go to a new home where she can live out her days with lots of other critters.

Dubbed "Mother Goose" by staff at the Seattle Animal Shelter, the goose was happily bathing and preening herself yesterday in a toddler swimming pool in an outdoor cage at the shelter.

"She doesn't appear to have suffered any lasting adverse effects," said Al Rechterman, animal care supervisor. "She's a very amiable goose."

Mother Goose has been getting antibiotics from animal shelter staff. It takes two people to do it, one to hold her and another to pry open her beak and put the medicine down her throat.

Brenda and Tim Chovanak, who have a 15-acre farm outside Snohomish, plan to adopt Mother Goose and take her to live with about 80 other animals -- most of them adopted -- on their farm.

"I think she should be named Lucky," Brenda Chovanak said yesterday. The Chovanaks are scheduled to pick up the goose at the animal shelter tomorrow.

After Mother Goose was discovered, animal control officers captured her and took her to Phinney Ridge Animal Hospital, where a 6-inch arrow was removed. The arrow, which might have come from a small crossbow, penetrated the left side of the goose's head just above her ear canal.

"Fortunately, the arrow didn't have any barbs," Rechterman said. "It had a nice smooth shaft so it was fairly easy to pull it out. The wound healed up and isn't much more than a scab now."

Don Jordan, animal control manager at the city shelter, said he hopes Mother Goose's adoption will spotlight the animal cruelty case and encourage anyone who might have seen the crime to come forward.

A Canada goose at Green Lake was also shot in the chest with an arrow recently. It was taken to the Sarvey Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Arlington, but efforts to save it failed.

Mother Goose's new owners, the Chovanaks, love animals, bought a farm and moved there from Seattle in June. One of the first things they did was advertise that they were adopting animals.

"She's going to love our pond," Chovanak said of Mother Goose.

The couple now have a barnyard full of adopted animals, including 40 chickens, 30 ducks, a couple of geese, four peacocks, two goats, two horses and two potbellied pigs.

"All the adopted animals come with a story," Chovanak said.

One of their adopted roosters, named Chipper, came from a woman who thought she was getting a partridge that wouldn't grow very large, but it turned out to be a partridge rooster.

"It eventually began to crow," Chovanak said. "The woman's neighbor complained and we ended up adopting Chipper."

P-I reporter Darrell Glover can be reached at 206-448-8314.

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