Puppy potholes
By Mary Bruemmer
mary.bruemmer@pineriverjournal.com
It was a hole-y time in the neighborhood…
Shortly after the snow had melted and the ground had apparently thawed, I looked out the window one day to see two freshly-dug holes in the front yard. To add insult to injury, one of our dogs was lounging right next to one of the holes, as if to brag about her latest feat. (Or would that be paws?) She looked like she was claiming squatters rights and wasn’t going to move for anyone. She was holding her head up high and glancing around as if to proudly say, “Look what I did.”
This is one of the downfalls of owning dogs. More to the point, this is one of the downfalls of owning dogs that rule your life and get away with anything. Go ahead, ask anyone who has visited us and met our “family” - they’ll tell you that our dogs are spoiled.
Back to the digging of holes…I refer to these as puppy potholes, and find myself constantly warning visitors to be on the lookout for them, lest they find themselves tripping into one. For the most part, the dogs dig their holes in our driveway, but apparently the front lawn was awfully appealing this spring. And, of course, we have no way of knowing which dog (there are three) actually dug the holes, although in this case it’s a pretty safe bet it was the one who was guarding them with her life.
A friend told me to just plant something in the holes, instead of patch, patch, patch. Looking at this from a dog’s point of view, if I plant things in their holes they might take that as permission to dig everywhere because, after all, “she’ll just stick a plant in here, anyway.” (Dog psychology is a little tricky. Not only do you have to delve into their psyche, but you also have to actually understand what they are thinking and/or saying.)