Digging for Gold? Gina the Tunneler.

We have had our dog for almost 10 years now. And she's sweet, absolutely. But she has this annoying habit: she digs up the flowerbeds.

Now obviously I know many (most?) dogs dig. They like to make themselves a cosy nest for sleeping in. And I remember our first Dalmatian dog digging holes underneath my Mum's beloved roses (alongside those dug by the chickens, by the way). 

But Gina doesn't dig her bed, she just...digs. Huge holes. And afterwards she comes in all muddy and flops down on the parquet all happy. And I go into the garden with dismay, and view yet another Hydrangea bush dug up, or my lovely Echinacea covered in earth.

She started in a small way, a couple of years ago, in the bed between the back and side garden, and we forgave her, for she had found the tunnel of a vole who obviously lived underneath that bed. We even praised her, I remember, clever girl, that will show that vole!

But then the small hole got bigger, and deeper, and we were certain that the vole had moved on ages before, and she dug up all my tulip bulbs in the process.

So we put up wire netting, to protect the bulbs and to stop her. She simply tore out the netting. Then we tried chaining her up when we weren't around to stop her. She howled. So now we try to keep an eye on her when she goes into the garden.

And as long as our eye is on her, she is innocence itself, simply snoozing in the sun or dozing in the shade, nowhere near a flowerbed, in fact.

And then, as soon as our attention lags, she is at it again. No way that she is digging for mice or voles (we hardly have any left anyway, with Viggo hunting them mercilessly) - and the holes get more numerous and bigger every time.