Specialty Gardening: What's a Cottage Garden Without a Dog?, 1 by lobsterandi

lobsterandi wrote:
The only thing that saves my gardens is that my dog is too little to do any real damage (only 6 pounds lol)

Actually, thats not true. I've got two dogs... we have an invisible fence. We got it so they can run around without worrying that they'll chase a mailman or be hit by a car. The collars can either be turned up or down, so the little one gets the equivalent of a static electricity shock and the big one gets something a bit stronger. I was worried about the electric fence at first, but then I shocked myself on the highest level and really all it did was scare me to pieces. My dogs only got shocked in the beginning - now they just know that its there and don't try to chase squirrels, UPS guys, rabbits, etc.

So... if you have an electric fence put in, you can also ahve it go around your various flower beds. You can get a fence around just an island in your yard, because when you bury the cable you can either twist it or keep it straight... twisting cancels the signal, then when you want it to work again you leave it straight. All the dogs have access to are things that I have a hard time killing... tiger lillies, irises, hostas, and other things like that.

Here is a picture of the little one, Bentley. He gets the zoomies but always avoids the flowers.

Good luck with the new one!

Andrea

p.s. Good luck getting him to potty on woodchips. Our dogs hate the woodchips, even as puppies.