Garden Girl

This weekend, Emme spent time "helping" me garden at the lake house. At Wooster, I can put Emme and Rudy on the screen porch and then go into the garden and work. They can see me and I can monitor them when I work outside in the back yard.

It is different at the lake house. If I leave the dogs in the house, the dogs cannot see me when I am outside in the garden and I can't see them and what they are doing. We have a metal tie out stake that I use for Rudy and he is fine as long as he can see me and can find some shade to lie down in. I bought a long cotton training leash, maybe 25 feet long, for Emme when I am in the garden. This weekend, I hooked Emme onto the leash and took her outside with me. I worked in the garden and she sniffed, played in dry leaves, chased bugs, carried sticks, and got extremely dirty. Except for getting wrapped up in the hydrangea bush and getting tangled around the legs of the stone bench, she did pretty well. She played in the garden when I was gathering up winter debris. She walked with me to the compost pile. She laid down in the garden and rested or played for almost an hour. When we were done, except for getting pretty dirty, she was none the worse for wear.