Dachshund – Garden Gate Flowers

Migrant Hostile

It seems every garden needs a dog these days. It is a trend led by Monty Don, who took it to another level this year by creating a garden for the Chelsea Flower Show that was designed for, and by, his dog Nell. Badger, our own canine horticultural expert, watches Monty Don on Gardener’s World and barks angrily whenever he sees Nell. I suspect Badger shares our view that basing your garden design on the random wanderings of your dog is taking the whole thing a little far.

The Midlife Garden has not been designed by a dog, but Badger’s influence on it is clear. He spends long hours patrolling the beds and borders, on the lookout for frogs, rodents and, on one particularly disturbing evening, Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillars. Thankfully he rarely, if ever, catches anything but his regular rootling through shrubs has created well-worn paths under the Peonies and Persicaria. So, in some sense, I have designed my planting around his habits. In our own scaled down version of Elephant Walk, I realise that planting anything on his path is ill-advised, as evidenced by the crushed Nicotiana and broken Bells of Ireland.

But Badger doesn’t confine himself to the dense jungles of the borders. He roams the lawns and paths in his efforts to evict other interlopers, of which the worst offenders are pigeons. Mrs B wonders if Badger picks up on her own annoyance at the half-arsed efforts of pigeons building nests in the pyracanthas or apple tree. They lay three twigs on top of one another and call it home, but they make such a flapping fuss about it. If Badger really does feed off Mrs B’s anger, he takes that anger, distils it, pressurises it and vents in a concentrated stream of apoplectic rage every time a pigeon lands anywhere near the garden, let alone actually in it. To Badger, pigeons are unwanted migrants, treating our trees like hotels, and like a Tory councillor, he wants them out of our Back Yard.

He does not spend ALL his time barking and getting angry. He is generally a calm dog, but not everyone would share this view. Certainly not the middle-aged woman we met the other day with her long-legged terrier cross. Badger and I were nearing the end of a relaxing walk when we came upon them. Badger was off the lead, and for a moment I thought he would maintain his relaxed demeanour with the other dog which was being tightly restrained by its tense owner.

Badger did his now customary nose to nose meet and greet, swiftly followed by a mouthful of snarled invective as he leapt at the larger dog. The owner pulled it away and I grabbed the now simmering Badger. She questioned why my dog was not on a lead, which was a fair point, and I apologised, sounding like a woolly-headed liberal parent making excuses for his “boisterous” child (for which you can read “spoilt”). But she was not in a mood for apologies or placations.

“Drives me up the FACKIN’ wall”, was her response as she strutted away.

I drew two of conclusions from the interchange. One: she is not from round here. And two: my dog is a foulmouthed little tyrant.

Like the master of quick wit and ready repartee that I am, I had the ideal response to the potty-mouthed newcomer.

“If dogs are like their owners, we appear to have got our dogs mixed up”, as I offered her my foul-mouthed dachshund.

But, like the comedian who thinks of the ultimate putdown to an annoying heckler, but only when he is on the bus on the way home, I came up with my witty rejoinder when I was back in the Midlife Garden, talking to my flowers, while Badger licked frogs and shouted at pigeons.

Never found out what was cornered behind the herb trough

Badger’s Book at Bedtime

It is Pablo we must thank for the fact that we own a dachshund. When Josh slept over at his colleague’s house after a “Thursday is the New Friday” drinks session got a bit out of hand, it was Pablo who woke him, tunnelling down into Josh’s sleeping bag demonstrating a sausage dog’s obsession with warm dark spaces. If Josh had not been the unwitting bedfellow of his colleague’s dachshund, he would not have expressed his desire to own one, neither would we have promised him one when he was ill, and nor would my work colleagues have gifted us the funds to acquire one in Josh’s memory.

Why am I telling you this? Perhaps to provide some context to explain how I recently found myself sitting in the kitchen at 2 a.m, reading to Mr Long because he could not – or would not – sleep in his own bed.

It started when we agreed to look after my brother’s dog, Bruno (a Vizler/Pointer cross) for ten days. On the first night, Badger’s ‘cousin’ opted to sleep in Badger’s small bed instead of his own, which meant he had to:

Turf Badger off it
Drag it out from under a low shelf and
Curl up really tightly to fit on it

The first we knew of this low-level canine bullying was the whining of our little pet at the kitchen door. Bruno wasn’t relinquishing the bed, so we took pity on Badger and allowed him to sleep in ours. Badger was delighted and became quite accustomed to the arrangement over the following ten nights. When Bruno departed, Badger saw no reason why he should return to his old bed in the kitchen.

But, since we wanted our own bed for ourselves, we shut him in the kitchen anyway. Unimpressed by the return to his old dormitory, Mr Long whined; quietly at first, but then louder and with more urgency. And then he started to bark. Not incessantly, just occasionally, but regularly enough to awaken us as we were tipping off to sleep.

It was not as if Badger was angry. Just disappointed.

Eventually, I got up and tried bribing him with treats to stay in his bed. Which he did, until I switched the lights out. When I turned the lights back on after five seconds, to check he was still in bed, my dachshund was half way across the floor, frozen in mid-step.

I tried a couple more times, but Badger was beginning to enjoy his own version of Grandmother’s Footsteps. So I did what any exasperated parent would do and decided to bore him to sleep, by sitting with my book and reading, albeit not out loud. I am not that deluded (yet). Miraculously, it worked.

I only had to repeat the exercise a couple of times over the next few nights before Badger accepted his own bed instead of ours.

It was reminiscent of when we had to manage the kids’ sleeping patterns and is one of many similarities between bringing up toddlers and looking after a dachshund. It is no coincidence. Simply cuddling Badger seems to release a dose of oxytocin as if I am holding my child. Of course physically, Josh and Badger are at opposite ends of the scale: one, six feet four inches tall; the other with four feet but only six inches tall. And their respective characters are equally far apart: quiet, mild mannered and reasonable against angry, demanding and self-centred.

But the arrival of Badger is directly linked to the loss of Josh, so, we can be forgiven for treating him like our lost boy. Even our daughter ironically (or otherwise) refers to Badger as ‘the favourite child’ and there might be some truth in the observation.

Not that we ever spoil him or bow to his demands. Apart from the occasional bedtime story.

“My Sniffy Dog will find your biscuit”

Billy’s Beetle, by Mick Inkpen, was a favourite bedtime book for our kids when they were young, or perhaps I mean it was a favourite of mine, as reading it out loud was so much fun. Whether the little ones enjoyed it as much as I did is debatable, but I often think of it still, particularly the character of the “sniffy dog” which its owner claimed would be able to help find the eponymous errant insect.

In the Midlife Garden we have our own sniffy dog, in the shape of Badger, the dachshund. Known formally as Mr Long, he displays the classic dachshund profile of long dog, long nose. It is little wonder his life and behaviour are heavily influenced by the abundant messages coming from his snout.

Out in the field there are obvious signs that his brain is coming under a barrage of olfactory ordnance as we see his tail go into a frenzied tik-tok pattern. It is clear that he is on the trail of potential prey: deer or hares perhaps. It is prey that he has zero chance of ever catching, but it doesn’t stop him trying. In Mick Inkpen’s words, he will shoot off “like a rocket”, all be it a short legged, slightly rotund one, and he will quarter every part of a field, except of course the quarter that contains either of his increasingly irate owners who are calling him to heel.

In the confines of the home, Badger has more success catching prey and his handlers have a little more success in controlling him. Badger could well be helpful in finding Billy’s beetle but he more often finds woodlice and spiders. He has come to the rescue of Mrs B, a confirmed arachnophobe, on more than one occasion, picking up the offending spider and spitting it out, before repeating the process until it is dead.

But his Sniffy Dog qualities really come into their own when he is looking for his toys, such as ‘Carrot’ or ‘Stinky Pete’ (the ragged cuddly toy puppy). These toys are often ‘mislaid’ by his owners on top of shelves or in kitchen cupboards, but Mr Long’s snout soon rootles out where they are, even if he cannot see them, whereupon he will politely, but firmly, let us know where they are and that he requires them now, please. Using his full range of dachshund rhetoric of whines, growls, simpering or a single barked expletive, you know you will not be able relax until he has it back.

This Sniffy Dog is equally committed to discovering items of interest on your person too. If you chance to sit on the sofa, he is on your lap quick as a flash, checking your pockets for elicit substances. Be warned if you have a stray dog biscuit in your pocket: his long nose will find it. And he will frisk you anywhere you happen to be sitting, so be sure to shut the bathroom door firmly.

When I saw a police sniffer dog in action the other day, I wondered if Mr Long might have the skills to take up a role in the war against drugs. But then I remembered Christmas when a kindly neighbour gave the Long Dog a new toy as a gift. It was a squeaky, plastic gingerbread man and if previously we had thought Badger was a little obsessive over his toys, Gingerbread took it to a new level. In narcotic terms, Carrot and Stinky Pete are the gateway drugs, and plastic gingerbread is the hard stuff. Words cannot describe the mania that gripped Mr Long as he whined and slathered over this toy, agitated and stressed. The next day, while one of us took him out for his morning walk, the other disposed Gingerbread (well away from the house).

It seems cruelly ironic that at Christmas we should make our dog go cold turkey, but after 48 hours he was almost back to normal.

Whatever that is.

The Long Days are Here

Yesterday was officially The Long Dog Friday at school. I took our new family member in to meet some of the kind benefactors who helped make his appearance possible.

Yes: Mr Long has arrived.

‘Badger’ to his friends, our silver dapple dachshund was introduced as a birthday present to Mrs B. It was on that date last year that the “Mr Long” epithet was first used in connection with Josh, when he collected his suit from his Vietnamese tailor. This year, giving Mrs B the good news on her birthday that Badger was on his way, seemed apt.

The new arrival has settled in well. It is easiest to describe the young pup by means of governmental slogans. Instead of “Hands, Face, Space” it is more “Pads, Paws, Claws”, although his major activities involve “Pee, Poo and Chew”. He has needle sharp teeth, claws like fish-hooks and an outlook on life that is best described in three more words: “Small Dog Syndrome”.

It is obvious to us that he is exceptionally intelligent. He has worked out how to get food out of his Kong toy and how to move tennis balls from baking trays to find treats. He retrieves thrown toys and is already helping in the garden, dead heading any flower that is within reach. And he is precocious: on the day he arrived he quickly learnt that water lilys do not hold the weight of even the smallest dachshund (the pond lifeguard was on hand to retrieve the sodden puppy as he rapidly sank).

Obviously his intelligence is boosted by the excellent home schooling he has been receiving, and while for much of the time he retains an adorable nature (i.e. when he is asleep) there are other times (when he is awake) when we would not mind being able to send him to boarding school, pay someone else to educate him and take the blame if it turns out he is not as bright as we first thought.

In the absence of such alternatives, he has instead been introduced to the family business, spending several fraught mornings in the bookshop testing Mrs B’s multi-tasking abilities. So far there have been no major disasters and we can already see that his reading age is definitely above average.

Badger is undoubtedly here for the long run.