Jan Begert is a freelance writer who lives in a log home on a few acres in midcoast Maine with her wife, son and golden retriever, Finn.
My wife starts paging through seed catalogs around this time of year. I know in the back of her mind, she’s also trying to think of ways to foil the efforts of the dreaded Garden Marauder.
The Garden Marauder is stealthy, quick, ruthless, a hardened pro. He’s had years to perfect his craft.
As part of garden prep, my wife will occasionally stream a British TV show called “Gardeners’ World” in which an older gent, Monty, walks around planting, repotting, weeding and instructing folks on the extremely British, sacrosanct, and dare I say, obsessive art of gardening.
Following Monty obediently around as he roams his lush landscapes narrating as he goes is his sedate golden retriever, Nell, who languidly naps as he completes his tasks.
My wife watches Monty. I watch Nell, wondering where we went wrong.
Far, far, far down the genetic line from Nell is our Finn, the plant-destroying, hole-digging, glove-purloining, veggie-eating golden retriever, aka the Garden Marauder.
He is as bad as they come. In the garden, the payoff might be a string bean or two or sugar snap pea, which he helps himself to. Or perhaps a stolen Jack Be Little pumpkin right off the vine while you’re not looking. To be fair, it does look like a ball.
When we first got him at nine weeks and let him out into the newly fenced in yard in the front of the house, we were pleased. He had a place to run around outside. We had a few minutes’ peace inside the house to find the half-eaten LL Bean slipper, the clothing retrieved from hampers, and other detritus left in his wake.
He’s honed his skills over the years. As my wife gardens in the backyard, Finn spends his time digging holes, stealing and burying items, usually around the root system of a favored plant, and eating things he shouldn’t.
The mulch pile is a favored place to root out and munch on old, rotted vegetation.
After being caught too many times, he’s refined his burying technique. He rapidly digs a deep hole, about four quick paws’ worth, places his bounty inside, and uses his snout to cover it, using a side-to-side motion, with a few tap, tap, taps on top to make sure it’s safely covered up.
Since dogs don’t use mirrors, he doesn’t understand that we can spot the telltale signs all over his snout.
After he dug up and chewed through three beautifully thriving high-bush blueberry plants in the fenced-in yard, we reached a détente of sorts. We no longer plant edibles or cultivated flowers there and he has taken ownership of what we refer to as Treasure Island.
Located in the corner of the fenced in yard, Treasure Island is a mostly circular, slightly raised area about 10 feet in diameter, composed of wild raspberries, maple and poplar saplings, Black Eyed Susans, Golden Rod and weeds of all sorts.
It’s his to dig in, bury his valuables and otherwise defile. We don’t go in and he doesn’t tell. It’s his sandbox.
Interestingly, he doesn’t eat or chew on these plants, except for an occasional raspberry. He mostly buries his stuff there. Favorites include single gardening gloves, tennis balls, kindling, and half-eaten pieces of cardboard.
Over the years, I’ve read suggestions on how to protect the garden from marauders ranging from behavioral training to installing garden border fencing and even plant deterrents. None of them have worked to thwart our Caninus Omnivorous. With an olfactory system far superior to ours, years of breeding to retrieve, a natural hoarding instinct and a love of veg (and who can blame him on that one), we are outmatched.
I won’t go into our attempts at obedience training. It’s a touchy subject.
As for border fencing, I don’t like the idea of having to hop into our garden. Besides, he’s a big dog and would probably welcome the agility practice.
Plant deterrents like aromatic Marigolds haven’t worked either. Someone suggested we plant them around or between vegetable rows of the garden. The scent is said to deter animals. We planted a raised bed full of them last year alongside our vegetable beds. The Garden Marauder really enjoyed the aroma as he pilfered string beans and peas to his heart’s delight.
Another suggestion calls for spraying plants with white vinegar or apple bitter and mulch piles with citrus. We tried some of these very same sprays in the house as chewing deterrents when we first brought Finn home. They never worked. The sprays worked for a bit, but he always went back to what he was doing as soon as the applications dried.
My best advice is this. If you own a Garden Marauder, don’t plant anything that makes your heart sing in a dog enclosure and scrupulously monitor your untethered raider in unfenced garden areas. It’s the best I can do.
We usually double team Finn if he’s roaming around with us in the back garden area. One eye on the garden, one eye on the Marauder.
Now, where is that glove?!
