Be An Ambassador

Long time readers will know I'm passionate about gardening. As well as tending for the fairly small plot at the side of my house I also grow various bits and pieces on three allotments I rent.

I don't know if allotments are just a UK institution or not, but in case you've never heard of them they're basically large fields owned by a local body like a Town Council, which are subdivided into individual plots usually 25 x 5 yards. These individual plots are rented out to locals. Most people use them to grow fruit and/or vegetables, but some people also grow flowers to cut and take indoors.

Each individual plot is surrounded on all four sides by a narrow grass path about 50cm wide. If you looked down on the entire field from the air you'd see a very formal looking grid pattern.

My local allotments are only five minutes walk away. Up a lane, across a grass field and I'm there. Consequently when I go up there I often take my dog. She's getting on a bit now and enjoys nothing better than a snooze in the sun. So as I get to work with the spade she just lies down on the path separating my plot from my neighbour's and catches up on some sleep.

A number of the other allotment holders also take their dogs up there. For the most part they are well behaved.

One lady has two dogs, one well behaved and one not. She always keeps the ill-mannered one tied up when she's there, while the other one quietly potters around.

But there are two dogs that are regularly taken up there which to my way of thinking are a $%~#^!* nuisance. Their owners never have them on a leash and just leave them to their own devices. They charge about wherever they feel like and their owners make not the slightest effort to keep them in check.

At this time of year in the UK gardeners are carefully watching over their newly emerged seedlings. Carrots and parsnips are up, peas are just a few inches tall and young brassicas like broccoli and cabbage have just been planted out.

They're all at a very vulnerable stage and until they've done about another month's growing they're delicate little things that won't stand rough treatment.

A few days ago I was up there when one of the two unruly dogs, a springer spaniel, spotted me and my dog from a distance and came charging over. It bulldozed straight across my plot as it headed for my dog. She remained impassive on the grass path, while the other dog danced and pranced around her. As it did so it was leaping on and off the path. Each time it leapt off the path it came down on yet more of my precious seedlings.

When it had had enough it turned tail and departed the same way it had come - straight across my plot, snapping stems, squashing and uprooting seedlings as it went.

A few weeks ago I had a visitation from the other unruly dog, a labrador cross. This one wasn't remotely interested in me or my dog, but was instead snuffling around amongst my redcurrant bushes. At this time of year the branches are dripping with the small flowers that will shortly form this year's crop of fruit.

As the dog pushed its way through the bushes it was lashing its tail from side to side - it was obviously enjoying a particularly delicious scent of a small bird or somesuch.

The dog was only there for thirty seconds before it had moved on, but in just that short space of time it had made a right mess. The ground was littered with flowers that had been knocked off by its tail. Every flower represents not just a single currant, but whole trusses of fruit - as many as 30 or 40 individual currants.

The flowers won't regrow this year. That 30 second bull-in-a-china-shop episode simply means I'm now going to harvest significantly less fruit this year than I was previously expecting to.

I would be annoyed if these two incidents had taken place at the hands (or should I say feet) of dogs owned by non-gardeners. Such people might genuinely have been unaware that their dogs' actions had caused any damage. Like I say, I would still have been annoyed, but I would have been able to understand that the owners knew no better.

But for it to happen by dogs owned by fellow allotment holders? Other gardeners who are well aware of the effort we put in, and the significance of snapped stems and broken flowers?

To me it just beggars belief.

I find it completely incomprehensible how anybody can be so insensitive about their dogs' actions. I would have thought it was perfectly obvious to anybody with even half a brain that you don't take a dog into an environment like that unless it's under control.

You teach it that it can't take shortcuts across the plots, but must stick to the grass paths. If it's not going to stick close by then you put it in a sit or a down position in which it must stay while you do whatever it is you're doing.

It's not an environment for a youngster in my view, and it's certainly not a training ground. If you're busy with your plants you can't possibly concentrate on the dog as well. So if it's not already advanced enough in its training to deal with that sort of thing then leave it behind. Or else tie it up like the woman I mentioned earlier does.

Responsible dog owners have a hard enough time as it is. We face ever more draconian restrictions. And with prats like the two owners I've been talking about is it really any wonder?

I absolutely *adore* dogs, and I can't even begin to contemplate a time when I might not own at least one. But it makes me really cross when I see such irresponsible owners. It's not the dogs' fault - it's the owners' for allowing their actions to go unchecked.

And if a real pro-dog person like me gets upset at that sort of thing, how d'you think someone who doesn't like dogs will feel about it? It doesn't take a degree in rocket science to figure out they're likely to be *seriously* hacked off.

Now I realise you might well not have an allotment and never find yourself in this sort of situation. But it's the underlying principle I want you to be aware of. Every time we go out with our dogs, and every time we have visitors come to our house, we and our dogs have the ability both to be ambassadors setting a good example and to be irresponsible or uncaring setting a bad example.

Please - be an ambassador.

Recommended reading "Dog Training Blueprint To Success".

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