Doggy Treats in the Garden
Beau September 9th, 2008
The past couple of years I have worked hard to train my young Labrador Retriever. He’s a smart and gentle dog, and will do just about anything you ask. If he’s not good at something, it’s because his trainer (me!) doesn’t know how to teach him. This will hopefully be his first real season with ducks, and he turns two years old in a few weeks.
But he’s also full of surprises. Last year I threw him a tomato hornworm from the garden, which he happily munched up… yuck!
The other day as I was picking some beans, I looked over to see him sniffing the tomato plants, and then looked again to see him playing with, and then eating something on the ground. He had found, and picked off his own tomato hornworm!
My first thought for how to explain this: “Uh, well, I don’t know how he is on ducks, but man you should see him retrieve tomato hornworms!” He wanted to sniff out a few more himself, but he has a knack for pulling off entire branches of the tomato plant too. So I found a few myself and threw them to him. He seems to have a taste for those little suckers. Maybe when we go duck hunting, I’ll take a few hornworms with me and rub them on the birds?!
If you can get him to take just the hornworm instead of the entire branch, you could rent him out. Some people have bird dogs and you have a worm dog.
Wouldn’t that be a trick! Worm dog… just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. Keeping my fingers crossed that he’s a duck dog soon!
A perfect laborer! Doesn’t complain about working conditions.
Cheers.