(no subject)

[haptalaon]

The number of common plants that will poison a dog! Daffodil, bluebell, nettle; ragworts and foxgloves, of course; and apples and cherries and box; hollies and horse chestnut; rosebay willow herb. Privet.

There's definitely a perverse witchy pleasure in learning off all the plants that will kill an animal; but I've been depressed too, because my garden is my small haven and I let it run over with the dearest weeds. I love my ragworts. Big, floppy-haired mops that are covered with caterpillars and then moths - there's a particular species that feeds on the ragworts, and thats how they become poisonous moths. The poison they eat from the plant stays in their bodies, and if birds do not pay attention to their red-winged "stay away", they'll get a sore tummy.

My husband and I have compromised; I've dug up many of the ragwort and re-bedded them in hanging baskets, but some are still there and we're supervising doglet closely when outside. The internet says most animals are repelled by its smell, and won't eat it unless dried. He seems to be past the puppy stage of "try out everything with my mouth" too.

But the privet. We have a privet hedge, and I'm already quite desperate to rip it out and replace it with native hedging; but that'll take time to grow, and I'm looking uneasily at the financial investment as we rent here. But I'm trying to justify it on the basis that - even if we do move, the hedges will still give pleasure to our sparrows.

Comments

[annofowlshire]

The owner of the horse we will be boarding came by a couple of weeks ago and taught us how to identify ragwort—with instructions to remove it from the pasture that they are using (and any others that we think we might want to use for livestock later).

Is the dog new? (Relatively speaking.)

[haptalaon]

Yeah, that's good - even small amounts of it can be fatal.

The key thing with ragwort, is horses *tend* not to eat it when it's growing and fresh - it smells weird. But if it's dry and dead and mixed into hay, then they will nom down in it and as I said, can be very lethal. So that's the major danger. Some horses near me are being grazed in a field with ragworts everywhere, which is :eek: - it's good your neighbours are being proactive!

& also, iirc, it's a plant where the council can require you to remove it - there's legal rulings.

The dog is new and a bit of a handful. I'm not super pleased tbh, my husband sort of pressured me into it over my objections which was All Kinds Of Not Great. Having a puppy - a border collie, no less - is like having a baby, which as I'm sure you know is a full-time, full-on commitment. But! Husband has been very good about taking on the bulk of the care, which I've been grateful for - it's still stressful but he's taking it seriously and planning the day to allow me non-dog time. The dog adores me, so I've been teaching him tricks and he tends to listen, which is good.

I'll try and upload some dog photos behind the friendslock soon. He is zoomy and nice, but very intense. I can't wait until Wed when he can go on some actual walks. Apart from the poison plants, our garden has 6ft drops and plastic/metal in the soil, it's just not dog friendly and he needs some proper energy outlets.

[annofowlshire]

Yes, I think we’re in an area that requires removal of ragwort.

Puppies are like having a baby/small child—it’s why I’ve been resisting pressure from my husband to get one. (Plus I know that I would end up as the person looking after it, especially once he starts being away half the week for work.) I already have one of those in my responsibility, thanks ;)

Border collies are very intense dogs. I’m glad your husband is taking on the majority of it.

[haptalaon]

Yeah, good call. The saving grace of actual babies is they don't bite, and you can pick them up for the first 3 years or so; and they develop slower, so the pressure is off to teach them everything at once. Whereas, things like not biting and not running under car wheels are things you have to nail in the first two weeks of being a dog owner.

With dogs, you're really trying to teach them how to be a human, but in this short and very high intensity period of time; like, he doesn't know how to play fetch. & we're working on training him how to calm down, which you'd think is a thing creatures would just Get. But no; I have ADHD, which is a very border collie energy, so I can definitely relate to "so intently focused on a thing I forgot I had bodily functions and I need to sit down now and rest". Like, you don't really think about it, but he needs constant guidance atm to figure out "what am I supposed to be doing right now?"

He's doing well, though! He's learned that when me and my husband both sit down on our laptops, he goes to his mat and we have sitting time. & it's kind of amazing, he comes over now to say hi and you can see the tension in his poor little body as he tries not to bite us, his mouth clamped firmly shut and his eyes looking awkwardly around; he wants to say hello! you say hello by biting! He doesn't want to be rude, he wants to bite and say hi, but we don't like that, but why not? It's just normal friendly biting? Poor little creature, but it's very sweet.

I'm trying to focus on what he is good at as well; he housetrained himself, he doesn't bark, he's stopped biting my organ, he learned "don't jump up at people" really fast. Not a fan of the fact he tries to eat glass, however.

[kartoffeltorte]

Have you got pesky canines about?

[haptalaon]

We just got a dog! He is 9 weeks old, and a very zoomy boy. It's mostly a thing my husband wanted, so it's a bit of an Adjustment and I am very tired, but we're doing OK I think.

It's three days until his vaccines are OK for him to go on the ground in public, so my husband has been carrying him around the village so he's not bored inside - which is adorable.

[kartoffeltorte]

Aww... what kind of puppy is he? :)