Decibel the gardener

Decibel always expresses an interest in everything we do, so it is not surprising that gardening activities are high on her list. She delights in biting a spray from the garden hose, and she tries to understand the sense in our strawberry picking. Her big nose right where the action is, naturally she is a bit in the way. I will let her taste a berry, but she doesn’t like them.
She does like the wild strawberries out in the pasture, since they are much harder to find, and thus delicious. Still, in either case she must check things out.
When I sent her away, since her big paws seem to crush the ripe berries preferentially, she went over to the garden plot and after sniffing with high interest, very precisely dug up the seeds Harold had planted. I don’t know if she actually ate them or just unearthed them (I really don’t care all that much about the squash), but at least it kept her busy.

We had only a few cherries ripen this year a lot of them just dried up, so I was picking them along with the strawberries, since red is red. The sour cherry tree is really more of a bush, and of course Decibel needed to ‘help’. I told her ‘leave it’, since sour cherries are unlikely to be favored by dogs, but naturally that just spurred her on. Sure enough, there she was carefully selecting a red sour cherry on a branch, picking it gently and nibbling on it.
All the while picking the ‘forbidden fruit’ her eyes were on me. Such a tease.
She got the cherry in her mouth, then promptly spit it out, picked it back up, spit it out again, and pawed it.

What a goof.

The mulberry tree in the backyard has black berries on it, so many that the ground below it is covered, but of course those won’t do.
Oh no, Decibel sits pointedly in front of me, with big eyes, waiting for me to insert a ripe berry picked for her. I show her the ripe ones on the branches low enough for her to reach, but no that is not what she wants.

She pretends to be lost.  I want a berry, mom; please!

So I pick them for her. Forget the fact that her rear end is probably stained purple from sitting on the fallen ripe mulberries; Decibel gets what she wants. She is just a little spoiled.

The next gardening endeavor concerns the basil Harold planted in a pot for me. I don’t care much for the plants in the garden, but once in a pot, well, I know where they are, and tend to water them, and actually look forward to harvesting them. The basil is in front of the door by the rosemary, so there is some sort of consistency there, and I can’t forget it.
Only the basil was being grazed on.
A whiff of Decibel’s muzzle confirmed who the culprit was. Both Harold and I haven't actually caught her eating the basil, she is quick about it and does it on the way in or out the door.  We just shrug and think it is funny.

This morning we went through out usual morning routine of smooching with the dogs, and slowly waking up. My conversational range pre-coffee is limited to nonsense (I think it improves after coffee), and I was petting upside-down Decibel. She groans and sticks all her legs up in the air, rolling around on her back like a giant June bug. She wants her belly rubbed, her ears scratched and to lick a human ear, all while getting hugs, and being told how pretty she is. It is our routine.
This morning she had a glint in her eye, that was full of nonsense, and reminded me of her gardening skills.  Maybe I even smelled some basil on her beard.
So I said some nonsense about, “You must think we grow pot, since basil grows in pots…”

After all the dogs were cuddled, I headed for the bathroom, and Decibel came rumbling up the stairs, visiting me, carrying an empty flowerpot.

No kidding.

She had to go out in the backyard to get that one, and bring it upstairs, but after mentioning pot to her, she brought me one. It was a first.

What a clever dog!