Where the dog ran

On Thursday, I spent a few hours outside planting vegetables in the garden while Indy hung out and played in the yard. Since his clodhopper paws always seem to find their way onto my plants, I set up the rabbit fencing so that it was looped around the raised bed, almost entirely blocking access to the garden patch. Notice the almost. I figured Indy wouldn't be interested enough to wriggle through the gap between the holly bush, the downspout, and the fencing to get into the garden, but at one point I heard a noise and looked up to find him standing in the barely-Indy-sized space between the fence and the garage. Not wanting him to gallop through the raised bed his way in, I got up to shoo him away.

As he backed out of the gap to return to the yard, he somehow managed to perfectly capture a plastic hanging pot that was sitting nearby, snaring its hanging hook on the leash ring of his collar. So there he was, backing away in terror while this 10-inch pot of half-dead plants bounced along merrily in his wake, attached neatly to his neck. And of course, the more nervous he got, the faster he went, and the faster the diabolical attacker chased him. Chunks of potting soil were flying every which way, Indy's eyes were growing comically wide, his ears were set to Very Very Alarmed. I was laughing so hard I could barely see, but I did the right thing. Instead of pausing to snap his photo, I went to his rescue, then laughed some more as he sidled away, eyeing the hanging pot warily.

I righted the pot and set it down directly in front of the gap in the fence. Strangely enough, he seemed to lose interest in investigating the vegetables after that.




New post and photos (including a few of Indy) are up at the garden blog.

* title from a favorite star myth that I tell the kids at work