On gardening with a dog

Earlier this week, I was out in the garden picking peas, and had Casey off leash in the yard. I got him to lie down next to me for a while by occasionally feeding him a pea I was picking, but he got bored with that and started to wander around.

First, he wandered through the lettuce patch- I didn't care because all the lettuce has gone to seed anyway.

When he stepped in the carrot patch, I started to get worried, but then he was in the aisle between the rows again.

He started sniffing the potatoes and the squash plants, and I had this fear he was going to pee on them. "Casey! No! Come!"

He doesn't come. What does he do instead? He plops down and starts rolling in my squash plant. At this point, I very quickly get up and stop picking peas and shoo him out of the garden. On his way out, he knocks over a tomato plant or two.

I chain him up, away from the garden, and inspect the damage.

A couple vines off one squash plant are broken. I set the unbroken ones upright. The plants are HUGE, so I'm not worried about them or anything. I set the tomatoes upright, too, and hope they'll be OK. They probably will. To be on the safe side, we went out to get tomato cages that night.

Casey doesn't dig. I'm glad of that. He doesn't eat my plants either- I've heard of dogs that do that. For the most part, he avoids the garden entirely. I guess I need to make sure he understands the "Never, Ever set foot (paw) in here" rule.

And, after it was all over, I laughed at the ridiculous site of my dog rolling in the squash. It was funny.