Musings on a May Monday

See the wide strip of bare ground in the picture below? Last Thursday it rained off and on most of the day. During one of the not raining spells I turned everyone outside as I always do. Got busy doing other stuff and really wasn't paying as much attention as I should have. So, okay, I screwed up twice. Once because I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have and once because I didn't lock the gate at the end of the garden. I remember thinking about it and then thinking, "I don't have anyone who will even try to pull this gate open". Paint me stupid.
It got really quiet outside and I heard the quiet. Not a good sign and so I hurried to the door to check on everyone. First, it had started to rain again. Second, I see most of the dogs all sitting or standing in a line facing the flower garden. Two dogs are very conspictiously missing. I stepped out on the porch and at once started having a screaming fit. One red Doberman (Chance) and one black Standard Poodle (Caruso) had decided to open the gate and let themselves into the garden. When I caught them they were in the process of racing back and forth and stompping on as many flowers as possible. So we now have room to plant more flowers.
At least on this side of the porch the gate always gets locked. I don't make the mistake of leaving it open because with the goldfish pond there is just too much of a temptation to go in and "play". As it is I always have to chase two or three new, young dogs out every spring. How do they get in? To tell the truth, I'm not totally sure. I have my suspions, but have not actually caught anyone entering, so don't know for sure.

Sometimes I have people make comments about training the dogs to stay out of the gardens. While I have been very successful at training my own dogs to stay out of my flowerbeds and gardens over the years, this is totally different. On any given day I might have between 5 and 15 or more dogs here and none of them belong to me. That paints a whole other picture.

Anyway, for what I think might be the first time I am actually posting a couple of pictures that don't have any dogs in them AND the mischief that was done to the gardens was done by someone other than Sanity. I now know she has survived her puppyhood and made it to three years of age. Amazing! Totally amazing!