Oh Marcia, I'm so sorry. You must feel so bad after all that hard work.

Cindy

Oh how I remember those frantic days, thank goodness our dog is way past that stage!

Dear, dear Marica, a strategy is definitely in order.
Good luck!

Sharon

I feel for you too. Look at the bright side...the dog wanted you to grow a premixed salad when he dug and mixed your soil.

Do you have some chicken wire you could place on the raised bed? How about pruning some rose bushes or finding some cactus? Guess your little raised bed probably felt to him like a large bed, soft and warm, that you made just for him.

Brenda (who also has a 1 year old puppy and is waiting with crossed fingers and toes hoping not to see similar damage done here also)

LOL at the rose canes, Brenda - he was chewing on one the other day, so maybe not! Chicken wire is a good idea. I'll ask dh to cut a piece today.

Sharon, our own dog is trained pretty well to stay out of the gardens. Diesel is beginning to be aptly named, i think. Sigh...

Oh, I feel for you Marcia! Puppies are so cute, but unfortunately don't seem to grow a brain until the age of 2!lol I was going to suggest laying raspberry canes over the bed, but if he's chewing on rose canes that may not work either. Our dog was a little older when we decided to put in a flowerbed in front of the house, but unfortunately that was where she had carved out a nice little bed for herself. I'm sure she was thinking "How dare they take over MY bed"! She continued to sneak in there for a couple of years until I finally planted some cactus there. After that she decided to find a new, more comfy spot ;^)

Anyway, good luck with the chicken wire, and maybe throw in a handful of moth balls?

Laurie

I use lots of the little wire border fences - not as a border, just stuck in where I don't want the dog/cats - sometimes right in the middle of a plant. This includes, unfortunately, my planters in front of the steps. The cats like to sleep in them. Our old dog does have a favorite spot under my huge Scotch Altai rose bush, so I let him keep it, and he doesn't like to walk on the rocks around our house, so the big flowerbed has a bare edge right beside the path where he walks. At least once puppyhood is over, they quit chewing, but they still dig and lie in the wrong spots! As a side note, the best luck I ever had keeping cats out of an annual flowerbed was when I laid 2" stucco wire on top of the ground, and planted my petunias in the holes.

My one friend had a big problem with cats coming and leaving 'gifts' in his flower bed, he cured that one by planting a bunch of cacti through-out...unfortunately, now they come over and spray his front door...I guess they're getting their revenge.

As far as the puppy problem Marcia, have you considered a training collar (if your son wouldn't object). Electro-shock therapy...it may sound drastic, but it works very well if used properly. If you do consider this you may want to see about borrowing one, as they are fairly expensive (though it may pay for itself, depending on how much damage the dog is doing) and are available at most hunting related stores that sell dog training supplies.

Just so I am clear on this one, we have a shock collar for training our hunting dog, but both DH and I tried it on ourselves before we ever put it on the dog, to see how strong the settings were, and we don't use it on him beyond what we could take. (Not some strange fetish...just making sure we wouldn't hurt the puppy...LOL!) Uncomfortable, but not painful, if used correctly they are a very useful tool. If used incorrectly, well...I saw a guy using one, and as his dog ran away from him, he nailed him so hard that the dog literally did a flip... :-(

For our dog, we put the collar on him, walked him around the perimeter of everywhere he wasn't supposed to go, and then turned him loose. DH had the remote, and everytime the Hunter tried going into the flowerbeds, DH would say "no" and if he went in anyway then he would get a little shock, once he was out, we'd walk him around again, showing him the 'no' areas. It didn't take long and now he's really good. Last year we could take him to my mom & dad's place and he automatically recognized that he could go anywhere on the grass, but he wouldn't go into the dirt areas (flower beds, veggie garden, etc.) He'll be 3 this spring, so still a young dog.

Verena

Dh was supposed to cut chicken wire today but didn't... I'm thinking some kind of little fence might work - i do have some wrought iron fence parts in another garden, so maybe i'll move them. This is an almost full-grown golden retriever puppy, though, so i'm sure he could climb over them if he wanted!

We've heard of the electo-shock collars, but i doubt if we'd bother with it. I think he might have gotten the message from the way he's been looking at me! LOL How long that will last is another story.

Chicken wire will work (it works for rabbits too BTW), but if you leave it up it rusts. A fella in my rose society up north went to a garden center and got some green coated fencing. This stuff is pliable, won't scratch or rust and looks pretty decent. I wish I could remember what this stuff is called.....

I am having the same issue with my dogs...one of them in particular. Instead of walking to the backyard in the grass he climbs onto the center of my long raised bed and trots down the back right thru the middle! Good thing its still mostly frozen! I was at Canadian Tire yesterday looking at the wire fencing sections. I think I might have to break down and buy some especially now that stuff is starting to sprout.I have decided that if we are going to end up stayimg here we need to consider some type of fencing down that side as well...since he also prefers to "go" in the neighbrs back yard!

That's what i ended up doing. I had four sections of wrought iron fencing - the short green kind - and put one on each side. So far it's kept the dog out. I still might have to replant the lettuce, spinach and radishes, though.

Garage Bed Planting Plan:
Nicotiana
Scarlet Runner Beans
Snapdragons
Glads
Salvia
Columbines

The Reality:
1 Spud (left)
1 Daisy (right)
2 Dandelions
And Spud stole my gardening glove too.

LOL!!! Too funny!! Darn Dogs is right!!
Wow...you're a lot greener than we are here yet. DH fertilized the lawn a few days ago but it will still likely be close to a month before we look like that. (Would help if we'd gotten the rain that was supposed to visit us...the last few days it's been sunny, nice in the green house, but with a really chilly wind.) I can't go outside and dig because it's too cold for the little guy to be out...unless I set his playpen up in the green house...hmmm... ;-)

Oh Gil, that's funny! I mean, not funny - but, well, you know what i mean. I guess mine would have been funny if i wasn't so mad at the time! And maybe if i'd gotten a picture of Diesel laying there all nice and comfy. A few things are coming up in my little bed - the radishes did okay, but i should replant the lettuce.

And Diesel, the silly thing, is now laying on the sidewalk and using one of the sidewalk beds as a pillow! That's okay - nothing planted there except for some self-seeded pansies and columbines. Darn dog... :)

Yeah, it is funny for now... I have nothing planted yet. The wind is icy today and they were in the shelter there, on sunny warm soil... I didn't really blame them. I just need to buy a couple more sections of that folding fence, it seems to have given them the hint. I'm not wild about the look of it, but it's better than the alternative.

Glad to hear your radishes pulled through Marcia. And LOL about babies in the greenhouse Verena, perhaps you just need to leave Brayden out a little at a time and harden him off? LOL!

I hear all of you. When we redid the yard a couple of years ago, we pulled down our dog pen because we were down to one dog and figured we were not going to get anymore. Well, somehow, last summer, I aquired a couple more (my idea) and they do not stay out of the flower beds. I have to figure out where to put another dog pen as the area where the original dog pen was, is now a shade garden. This is a real issue as there is no obvious place to put a 12x12 or larger dog pen. Wherever I will put it will look odd and my choice are also restricted by the need for shade. So I keep going out to the yard and I keep looking...

Danni