The plant-eating BadKitten on my staff is in the doghouse

JUNE 18, 2011

When I last wrote about my garden staff, Rags, our Old English sheepdog, and Benjamin BadKitten, my Maine coon cat, were miffed at me because I wouldn’t let them have flocks of sheep and chickens in our backyard. Kaylee, our golden retriever, was offended because I had (accurately) described her less-than-slender silhouette.

Recently I upset the dogs again by deciding to start my next garden project in the front yard, which is not fenced and therefore off limits to them. Their territory is our fenced backyard, where the sheepdog joyously scatters mulch and garden dirt all over the lawn, and the retriever parks herself in the middle of whichever bed I’m trying to weed. It is no coincidence that my favorite place for making new gardens is anywhere except the backyard.

For the past few weekends, I’ve been digging out sod and getting ready to plant a perennial flower garden in a corner of our front yard. If a Seattle Mariners baseball game is on the radio when I’m gardening, I like to listen to the play-by-play while I dig and plant. (Hey, the Mariners are still in contention and it’s already June; last year, my hapless team was out of the pennant race by the end of April.) But, with this garden project, I couldn’t crank up the radio loud enough to muffle the howls from the backyard.

The dogs, especially Rags ,the sheepdog, miss me if they know I’m outside gardening and they can’t see or help me. (Please insert quotation marks around the word help.) Kaylee, the golden retriever, barks, and Rags howls, and the result for me is no radio ballgame, no peace, and a whole lot of guilt for abandoning them.

So, before I started the actual planting, I went to our local pet supply store and bought two sturdy steel anchors and two 30-foot lengths of cable. My husband made sure the anchors were solid in the ground in our side yard, and then he attached the cables to our dogs’ collars. I added a bowl of water for them under a shady oak tree. Result: two deliriously happy goofballs, who can supervise me while I work.

Now all is forgiven between the two dogs and me. Benjamin BadKitten, however, is in big trouble.

One of our neighbors was dividing some of her herbs recently and gave me a starter of catnip (or catmint, as the English call it.) I planted it in front of a rosebush and, the next day, went out to check on whether it had survived the night. I found the little plant eaten to the stems – and the only slug in sight was a 15-pounder with fur and a plumed tail. 

Last weekend our neighbor gave me two more catnip starts. I set them aside, still in their peat pots, for planting later, after I had finished the new flower bed. Unfortunately, I forgot about the little guys until I looked out the kitchen window that evening – and saw Benjamin BadKitten squinting at me, a catnip plant dangling from his mouth. He wasn’t the least bit sorry, either. So that cat is definitely in the doghouse (except every evening, when he has to have a nap on my lap.)