I’m starting to think it might not have been the birds that ate our strawberries.
Let’s backtrack.
Perhaps you have heard of our family pet, Schnauzer Cheap.
We’ll call him SC.
SC loves to eat. The highlights of his day are breakfast and dinner. He also loves fruits and vegetables. He happily munches anything we drop on the floor: an occasional almond, a piece of carrot, bell pepper, a bit of apple, onion, cucumber, corn … loves it.
In fact, he gets almost as excited when he smells that we are peeling a carrot as when we are preparing meat. Sometimes we give him carrots for training treats, and he will eagerly perform his repertoire for a bite of veggie.
So, the other night, I was knitting on the couch downstairs. SC came thundering down the stairs. He stopped in front of me and looked at me proudly.
With a mouthful of green beans, freshly plucked out of our garden, dangling from the sides of his muzzle.
It was pretty funny. SC and I can communicate without words, and I’m pretty sure he was saying, “Look, ma — I’m doing my part to eat local! 100-foot diet and all!”
But of course, I was thinking, “My haricots verts! I didn’t even eat any yet!”
So, I took SC up and scolded him, took his beans away, and first thing in the morning we redecorated the garden to keep him out.
Also at that time, Mr. Cheap confessed that he caught SC earlier this year, with part of a pea vine dangling from his furry black lips. Thus, the lack of pea harvest just might be explained. Yeah, right: The “birds” ate the baby pea plants. The birds that SC obsessively chases out of our yard. Inspector Poirot, I’m not.
Some people have elk, we have an omnivorous schnauzer.
That’s soooo funny! My dad has trouble every summer keeping his dog out of the tomatoes! This year, she got him again. He had a great big juicy one nearly ripe, the first one of the season, and he actually caught her eating it! LOL
Argh! That’s so infuriating! A tomato would be really annoying. Last night I covered the beans with row cover in hope that will protect them from the dog.
Alas, we have elk AND an omnivorous shepherd and pug. We just had to “redecorate” the garden (with a fence) too! Luckily, they find basil repulsive. Unfortunately, they find kale and collard greens particularly succulent. Sigh. I feel your pain.
My dog loves carrots too! Be careful about the onions though, if a dog eats a large quantity of onion it can be toxic (our omnivorous Peke gave us an onion scare while visiting family. Everything turned out OK though.)
After reading your post about your dog eating your garden veggies, I’m not feeling so bad about my tiny potted tomato and herb garden on my patio. I don’t have to worry about my dog eating the food growing in my potted and hanging plants.
I did have to build a fence (out of free reclaimed bricks!!) to keep the dog out of the flower garden bed though.
We had a tomato dog too. He would patiently and carefully pluck the cherry tomatoes right off the vine (only the ripe ones of course!) If we could only have taught him to then place them gently in a bucket instead of eating them….
My Mini Schnauzer keeps eating my heather plants, the little purple buds, she then goes crazy for half hour, do you think its safe as i just cant stop her, she 12 weeks old and she MAD!!! but we love her mills.
@Trisha, if she’s OK, hopefully it’s OK — you might ask your vet. Maybe she likes the seeds? Check this link — it mentions lots of animals grazing on heather: http://www.electricscotland.com/gardening/heather.htm
I think mini schnauzers love all kinds of food — we used to have one who patiently walked the raspberry canes down to the ground to eat every berry.