Buster the Dog

This is Buster the dog. He is a fine fellow, but he is hell on a garden. Lots of people have this problem. Buster belongs to Helen in Agoura Hills and she works in Hollywood as a studio teacher minding the young actors, so Buster is home all day in the back yard. And he is SO rambunctious and playful. The good thing is that he has a playmate -- named Bear, an older furry chocolate lab mix, six years of age -- I wish I had his photo too.

So Helen is gone all day, but Buster and Bear have each other to play with, plus they have  a metal see-through fence and they can keep an eye on the neighborhood and let up a furious chorus of arf-arf when another dog comes by.

I love those dogs. Helen had me come up to her place for a week to watch them because she had to go out of town. So I played with Buster and Bear every day.

Now this is a blog about gardens, so I just have to say that Helen made her choice in her very small yard -- love the dogs and forget the flowers -- you just can't have both.

But she does have two tomato plants, tightly secured and protected by chicken wire and the dogs leave those plants alone.

I love dogs, but if you bring a dog into your garden, well .... things happen.