Hot Diggity Dog

It's all in the title. I have a dog that digs. And digs.

She digs up my perennials. She tries to dig up the bushes. She's dug numerous holes in the backyard.

My life was content -- I had a lovable, trained Golden Retriever. Levi is a neutered male, almost 4. I thought he needed a playmate, and a co-worker convinced me to look to a local animal shelter.

Then I adopted Bella. That's the name I gave her when I brought her home from the rescue place on New Year's Day. She had been called Molly Ringwald. (I wonder if the actress knows she's had a dog named after her?)

It took Bella -- a black Labrador Retriever / Bassett Hound mix -- just 3 days to learn her new name. I figured I'd gotten a pretty smart dog! She's just a year old now, 3 months later. She and Levi played well together. She is cute, with the look of the black lab half -- except shorter and longer, like the hound side.

First it was one deep hole, in the middle of the best grassy spot in my spacious backyard. Then 2 more, smaller holes this time. I took to filling them in with dirt -- but she was at it again the next day, redigging in the same spot. I pulled out my hair (figuratively) while she pulled out the grass roots by the handful...uh, pawful...energetic and determined to defeat me in my repair work.

So I sought advice. "Use cayenne pepper." "Try setting mouse traps next to the plants." "Put her dog poop around the area where you don't want her to dig."

I tried them all.

The pepper worked for a few hours -- until she seemed to develop a taste for it.

Twenty mouse traps later, some plants were safe; others Bella just bullied her way through and bypassed them.

I dreaded the third suggestion, yet had no choice but to scoop the poop and pile it in rings around the posies. I wondered if next my flowers would rebel and I'd have angry blooms on my hands, along with the odor of dried dog dung in the air.

So far, the poop seems to have done the trick in keeping her from most flowers, but the open yard is still fair game. I have to watch where I step, as if land mines await, not to twist an ankle in her wake.

There was a bright spot in all this, however. One Saturday, I sat soaking in my hot tub after a day of gardening, and as the sun set behind her, darling Bella calmly walked over to the very first large hole she'd dug -- nestled herself deep in the cool ground, settled her head on the lawn's edge, her brown eyes smiling at me. She too was relaxing.

I laughed out loud, never imagining the hole's purpose was so she could be snug in her own way, being brought into a new home, with a new dog friend and a new owner -- adjusting to a new approach to life. I smiled back and enjoyed the moment.

Still, each daily deposit of turd is used to dissuade her from digging. So far, she's winning because she and Levi have the yard to themselves all day while I'm at work to do as they please.

That is, until last week. I've now had a dog run put in -- she can dig all she wants behind the chain link fence, try as she might to get out. My flowers and lawn gratefully recover from her wounds.

I hope that, by July, things will be coming up roses again.