Woe is Me

Gardening with dogs (especially labs) seems to be a woe is me situation. I recently bought a rubber mulch ring. You know, the ones that go around the trees and stay put. We've been wanting to try it out, but they're kind of expensive - $12 for the small one. I finally bought one and put it out Thursday evening around my baby grapefruit tree. The grapefruit tree is being strangled out by all kinds of weeds so this seemed perfect.

Looking back now, I should have known better, but at the time I didn't think aything about the dog bothering this. Friday afternoon I head outside to check on the new pest control methods (chickens - more on them in a later post) and Tebow has eaten, EATEN half of the mulch mat. I called my mom and she said "what did you expect? It's like a big chew toy." She was right and I should have known better.

I also just finished reading Marley and Me which is all about a destructive yellow labrador. It's like Marley was reincarnated as Tebow. The book was really enjoyable and it made me laugh and cry.

Today, I found a great blog posting on vegetable gardening with dogs. I can totally relate to In My Garden's blog. Here, she relates how Sophie, her yellow lab, steals tomatoes from the garden.

"She used to make a beeline for the tomatoes or tomatillos or strawberries as soon as we let her outside. She stole more veggies than the deer, groundhog, and rabbits put together. So we fenced in that garden."

Sound familiar? She also talks about some of the dangers for dogs like these in the garden. I'm thinking about that mulch ring. I haven't seen any bits and pieces of it around the yard, so I'm guessing he literally ate it. We'll have to wait and see what comes out the other end. Yuck.