What I put up with for love

A new puppy is testing my tolerance for garden mayhem. Lola is a 4-month-old beagle mix who was brought up from Louisiana with her littermates to find adoptive homes in Massachusetts. She’s playful, affectionate, and all-around lovable. And she’s making a mess of the garden.

Lola's first day in her new home

    The first thing to go was a big puff-ball of ornamental grass, prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heteroleptus). When Lola first explored the yard, this plant attracted her irresistibly. Within in a few days, it was flattened. All the slender leaves were lying on the ground around the stubbly remaining base. Why this species and not a nearby dwarf fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuriodes ‘Hameln’)? Search me.

Prairie dropseed trying to resprout

    Let’s face it, puppies chew and bite. Lola plucks leaves off container plants, chomps on sticks she finds on the ground, and gnaws on my gardening sneakers. That’s pretty much expected.

    Also predictable is how much she loves digging. The sight of me digging tempts her to join in. Rodent burrows drive her into a frenzy. 

Excavating a vole's burrow?

She’s developed a game: take a plush squeaky toy outdoors, dig a hole for it, drop it in and cover it by nosing soil back over it, then go back an hour or a few days later and “find” it, with great joy. Once she’s run around the yard with the muddy prize in her mouth, she starts digging another hole for it. This is cute when she chooses an inconspicuous digging spot behind large shrubs. It’s infuriating when she wants to uproot my favorite peonies to bury her treasure.

Please, not the peonies!

     I’m reduced to putting up mechanical barriers improvised from fencing and hoop stakes and applying bitter apple spray, which is supposed to make things taste bad—both only mildly successful. From what I’m learning, training is all about “capturing” the dog behavior you want and rewarding it. I guess that means when she digs in the right place, she should get a treat.

    My idea of a good digging spot would be the compost bin. Lola loves to pull out and chew half-made compost components such as rotting stems and chunks of turf. So far she hasn’t buried anything in the compost. That can be a goal to work toward.

How about burying things here?

    Usually I defend my garden fiercely. I shooed the kids out of the perennial beds. When my husband killed a succulent near the barbecue grill that he thought was a weed, I was hurt and indignant. A neighbor who cut back branches on my side of the fence got an angry letter.

    This feels different. Lola’s a baby, and I hope she’s going to grow out of her destructive ways. In the meantime, I’m glad it’s fall, because I can tell myself the foliage she plucks or tears was going to drop off soon anyway. The holes she digs will soon be camouflaged by falling leaves.

They can't fall too soon this year

    Spring will be the real test. Can I stand to watch her destroy fresh new leaves and flowers? I hope I won’t have to.

There’s still time. If you’d like to attend a sustainable gardening class in my yard Saturdays October 26 and November 2, you can sign up here through Newton Community Education.