We just harvested our pitiful crop of potatoes. Problem is we planted about as many as we grew. I know the math isn’t good but we haven’t had the rain we needed. Now when our family was growing up we managed to do a much better job. And fortunately everyone loved the spuds in our house, even the dogs!
One year our oldest son wanted a Golden Retriever for his birthday. I think it was the 12th one but I claim a senior moment and don’t really remember. We scoured the AJC (Atlanta Journal Constitution) classifieds and found a puppy that filled the bill. The dog was100 miles away but a kid only turns 12 (I think) once. So we headed off to get the birthday dog. He was sweet and cute and I still remember (no senior moment here) Jay sitting in the back of our station wagon (before mini-vans were invented) holding that dog with the biggest grin on his face. He was happy with his present!
He named him Sam. Good name for a puppy and great name to grow into. Sam was doing fine, learning the ropes of becoming a dog. And Jay was enjoying being a dog owner. And then we got the phone call that changed Sam’s life and ours. Sam’s parents needed a home and we lived in the country so we agreed to take them. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We would have 2 adult Goldens that would eventually produce a litter of puppies. We’d make a little money and have lots of fun too. Great theory but the reality was a whole lot different.
Mom and Dad dog had never been out of a fence and we didn’t have a fence. So these dogs thought that until they hit the fence wall they were free to roam. Obviously this mentality gave them a very large area to roam in. Like the entire known world. We tried to use a chain to keep them confined but the old saying ‘How are you going to keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Pariee’ describes Mom and Dad dog perfectly. They weren’t giving up their freedom for anything. And no little, ole chain was going to stand in their way. And when mating time came around no little, ole chain was going to stand in their way.
So we soon had 12 Golden Retriever puppies, 2 adult maniac Golden Retriever dogs, and sweet, little, half-grown Sam. Our son AJ wanted to keep one of the puppies and we thought it was a great idea. He chose one that had white on his forehead because that white wasn’t a desired trait in show dogs. He named him Lion. The other 11 puppies were to be sold as soon as they were old enough. I learned ’soon’ didn’t eactly seem like soon when it came to puppies getting old enough to leave home.
We found ourselves chasing Mom and Dad dog all over the neighborhood. I guess one good thing was returning the items they picked up and brought home gave us a chance to visit with our neighbors. We eventually found homes for these poor, crazy animals before my family had to find a home for me (I mean mental institution).
That left 13 dogs still roaming around finding things to get into. I loved the puppies but they were a handful. I found myself getting up in middle of the night to feed the runt. I called him Rusty. He thought I was his mother and I guess I felt like I was. Fortunately the feeling passed quickly.
The pups were just the right age to roam when it was garden planting time. To keep an eye on them, I took them to the garden with us while we planted potatoes. They had a great time in the dirt, moving up and down the rows, tumbling over each other and getting a taste for potatoes too. The little critters would nibble on the potatoes in the row before they were covered up. We thought it was great fun to watch them help with the planting. I just never realized they were developing a taste for the spuds. But they did.
One by one the little darlings found their way to new homes to have new adventures. Rusty was the hardest to see go but we gave him to an older man who needed a great dog for companionship. Like Sam did, Rusty filled the bill.
Meanwhile as the potato plants grew and produced potatoes, Sam and Lion would stroll to the garden and dig one or two up whenever they wanted a snack. Several of the other pup’s owners told us how their dogs would dig potatoes in their garden.
Good thing we have a poodle now who doesn’t care a thing about potatoes (’cause she’s French not Irish, I guess). Frankly, the harvest this year just isn’t large enough to share with a dog.