Gardening with Weims

I try to be a responsible Weim owner while enjoying my gardening passion. That means I don't poison my dogs by using pesticides in the garden. My hostas are slug bait because I refuse to use poisonous slug bait. I can't use compost or fish fertilizer because the dogs think I've buried something tasty and proceed to dig up the plants I've just planted.

My garden is inviting to birds and insects alike. Especially insects. And because we've had the wettest spring in recorded history, mosquitoes. I looked into using a fogger in the garden, but the small print on the label said "harmful to pets and humans." So I got some of those mosquito dunks to kill the larvae in standing water.

In my case, a birdbath. To make a long story short, I had no sooner put a dunk in the birdbath, turned my back, and returned to the garage when I found the eaten crumbs of the mosquito dunk I had just put in the birdbath.

Anika is a fast, sneaky dog! She had eaten the dunk. I quickly contacted the pet poison hotline to make sure there was nothing harmful in the dunk. (Even though the label clearly says they are harmless. I wasn't taking any chances.)

And because I have insects and flowers and birdbaths in the garden, I have lots of birds. I had a daily fight with a robin this spring who insisted on building a nest under the deck. Each morning I'd knock down the nest she built the day before.You just can't have bird dogs and robin nests in the same garden. Unfortunately, I have been unable to talk sense into the robin that built a nest in a low branch of the birch tree under my office window. Soon, when the hatchlings become fledglings, I'm afraid they won't last long with fast and sneaky bird dog, Anika.