Red, Please Don’t Pee In My Garden

I yelled at Red.

All winter Red had been peeing in my garden.  It didn’t bother me,  because it was winter.  But once the perennials started coming up, that was different.

Frustrated, I yelled at Red, “Don’t pee in my garden!”  more than once.

It didn’t seem to make a difference.

Until one morning Jon heard me.  “You don’t have to yell at Red”, he said “you can talk to him”.

So the next day, when Red lifted his leg on the lily reaching out of the little wire fence I put around the garden to keep the chickens out I politely said to him, “Red, please don’t pee in my garden”.

Without peeing, he lowered his leg.

I led him to rhododendron bush on the side of the house and said, “You can pee here”.

But he didn’t.  Instead he walked back towards the garden and about two feet away from it, peed on the grass.

“Good boy Red! Good dog” I said, praising him enthusiastically.

I think Red has too much dignity to listen to someone when they’re yelling at him.  And he deserves better than that.

Jon was right, Red is the kind of dog you can talk to.