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oceanna_gw

Gol durn dog!

oceanna
15 years ago

I have three dogs. Two of them are easy to live with. The third is Bonnie the Knothead. Bonnie is a 1 year old Wheaten Terrier with twice as much energy and half as much brains as any dog should have.

Why am I talking about my dog in a gardening forum? I'm sure some of you have guessed.

Two days ago I planted two blueberry bushes in my garden. And that night when I let the dogs out to go potty Bonnie dug up my blueberry bushes and deposited them on the deck... just sticks with roots. Not cool. Do I want to watch Bonnie every minute she's out in the yard and spend my time yelling at her? Nope.

So I was thinking... my garden is up against my chain link fence already. I want to plant sugar snap peas. If I get stakes and attach hog wire to them so it forms a panel or two perpendicular to my fence would that keep BonBon from running through my garden like it's the Indy 500? Or would she run right through it and knock the trelis down?

Or... what did any of you do to protect your garden from your dogs? Do I have to fence the whole thing in? That would make it a pib for me to work in it, not to mention cost money and I'm not sure this old lady would be much good at stringing fences.

Ideas short of a doggy frontal lobotomty?

Comments (7)

  • sb158
    15 years ago

    Brain transplant? Call the Dog Whisperer? LOL...I've had dogs like that, too. My current puppy is too small to do any real damage, thank goodness.

    As for the fence, I have no idea how big your puppy is, but you might try an electric fence? Not a whole fence, but just a wire at her height to give her a little buzz if she gets in there. Wish I had a better idea, but a whole fence is a pain.

    Good luck with it...

  • noinwi
    15 years ago

    I think your trellis would work as long as you at least temporarily closed off the sides so she doesn't just run behind it. In the past I've had to fence off my entire gardening areas to keep the dogs out. I used the welded 2"x 4" fencing. It is fairly easy to run(I'm an old lady, too). One time we had a large girlie that kept laying on a flower bed of mine when I wasn't out there(she would move to another spot if she saw me coming). I finally "marked my territory"(urine diluted in a bucket of water)and she left it alone. Not sure if that would work with most dogs.

  • oceanna
    Original Author
    15 years ago

    Sb158, thanks for answering. A brain transplant may be the only real solution - lol. The Dog Whisperer is an idiot and you can google him and Humane Society to find out why. I teach dog training and I can't figure a way to train her not to dig up plants when I'm not around -- well, maybe if I did tons and tons of work on teaching a terrier to dig in one place only, but it's a longshot at best. Sit, down, stay, come, shake hands, that stuff is easy. I'm always open to suggestions, though. I have a feeling she'll mellow out in about ten years. But right now she's a very happy, zoom-zoom active girl who is just sure that the whole world and everything in it is for playing with her. She is about 17" tall and around 30# (haven't weighed her lately).

    In my last house we had a dog next door who wanted to fight through the fence with my dogs. Fearing a broken tooth I put up an electrified wire to keep my dogs away from the fence. Two dogs learned to just run right through it, ripping it out of the ground and disabling it. The third got one shock and decided that henceforth it would be a better idea to pee and poop on the living room carpet but no matter what she was never going outside again. So I definitely don't recommend hot wires for dogs.

    Noinwi, you're probably right about closing off the sides, i.e. fence the whole thing in. It's going to make it a lot harder for me to access though, darn it. Is a "welded 2 x 4 fence" what's known as hog wire? What did you use for stakes? You may have a good idea about the urine marking! That's brilliant -- if it works. I suspect your cross words to her plus that did the trick. In order to get to this patch of yard I have to go across the deck, down the stairs, and across quite a bit of lawn, so by the time I got there to yell at her she'd be long gone -- dashing up to me the minute she saw me.

    I'm going to keep your idea in mind. It's certainly easier than fencing so worth trying first. It reminds me of the line from that Disney movie where the guy was studying the wolves where he sait it took him three days and 47 cups of tea to mark his territory. lol!

  • jleiwig
    15 years ago

    I used wooden stakes and chicken wire around my garden after my dog decided she didn't like my planting arrangement and I had to buy all new transplants from the store.

  • noinwi
    15 years ago

    I'm not sure if the fencing I used is called hog wire. I used 48" height and 5' t-posts(pounded a foot into the ground). Unless you have a large dog that is going to jump full force against it, you could even use the t-posts for the corners, especially if you could anchor the fencing end to your chain link. The dogs we've had just didn't know they could jump over and didn't try(except for one...the big girlie, but she wanted out of the yard not into my garden). Welded wire is flexible enough that you could cut a piece and bend the loose edge wires around two t-posts(placed a few feet apart)to make yourself a small gate.
    We also had a dog once that dug a lot. We would bury her feces in the holes that were in undesired areas and it did help, but you probably wouldn't want to do that in your veggie garden. Be sure to go easy on soil amendments that attract dogs, like bone meal, blood meal and fish emulsion. Good luck and let us know what works for you.

  • greenbean08_gw
    15 years ago

    Is she likely to jump a fence to get to your garden? Since she's not too tall, you may be able to just use a shorter fence that you can step over. Our first dog, a lab/chow only needed a short fence to generally keep her out. Dogs 2 & 3, Lab/Hound/Shephard mix puppies (sisters) required a much taller & sturdier fence. We used t-posts for the main support and some cheap fiberglass poles to fill in (wear gloves if you use them though).

    We moved to CO about a year ago. This house had a perfect spot on the south side of the house, sort of screened from the street by a retaining wall and best of all NOT in the back fence with the dogs! My garden spot was picked out the first day I saw the house.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Tales of a Transplanted Gardener

  • ribbit32004
    15 years ago

    Our one dog doesn't see that his job is complete until he's tilled each bed thoroughly. Our other either doesn't know how to turn around when inbetween boxes or he just wants to take shortcuts because he'll walk straight over beds. He pushes everything down,he's a great dane, and snaps stems and roots etc. I don't know if I'm having a harder time saving the garden from the bugs or the dogs.
    I have some fenching, but I'm loathe to put it up because it would make accessing the garden more difficult.

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