Queen of the night

Linus is the king of the backyard, though these days I’ve nicknamed him The Little General given his Napoleon tendencies. 

What fate the flowers?

He tends to compensate for his small size with huffs, puffs, grunts, growls and the occasional angry bark. Especially when there are younger dogs afoot.

But if Linus is king, Nellie is queen … and at such a young age, too.

First an update.  Nellie is now 8 1/2 months old.  She measures 36 inches high, 40 inches nose to tail (with tail down, not extended), and her lionesque head is 27 inches in circumference.  The last is about as big as an NBA basketball.

So a small lion, though that will change.

Nellie also is a digger.  As mentioned before, she’s created occasional holes in various spots in our yard, in our raised flowerbeds and against the fence.  Normally I’d welcome them as the start of a backyard pitch-and-putt course.  But I don’t play much golf, and the holes are so substantial I think we’d have to use the basketball to make it fair.

It’s her digging, though, that has caused the worry.  Holes in the backyard are to be expected from young dogs, I think.  But Nellie takes it to another level.

We have against our south wall, on the brick patio, a flower box that measures 2 ½ feet deep and about 4 feet wide.  It’s about a foot deep.

We’ve had mixed luck growing things there.  But the dirt is clean, properly mulched and smells healthy.

Or the dirt was, I should say.

One Sunday, on a warm day, Nellie sought the cool damp of Mom Earth.  Rather than dig the mother of all holes, though, she saw the convenience of emptying the flower box of half the dirt.  It proved the perfect bed … the remaining dirt was both cool and conformed to Nellie’s shape.  The rim of the box was perfect for propping her head.

Perfect size.

There she slept, oblivious.  When she awoke, she’d carry the black earth on her nose, tail and all spots in between.

We thought it cute and snapped photos.  But the patio was now a mess.  Worse, there were a couple of large flowerpots, not yet planted, that Nellie also had half-emptied.

And then there was the chore of brushing Nellie each time she wanted in.  Nellie loves to be brushed, but 10 times a day seemed excessive.

Last weekend I emptied the box completely and swept up the surrounding dirt plus that of the other pots. Then Cindy purchased a couple of blue  cushions from Target to put at the bottom of the box as a dirt substitute.

Dirt-peppered.

A perfect compromise of utility and convenience, we thought.

Needless to say, Nel hasn’t entered the box since.

We’ve felt a bit guilty about the change … turning her Mother Nature bed into some kind of backyard Barcalounger.  More on that guilt in a second.

Comfy, right?

But given her digging habits, we also were concerned about how she’d deal with Cindy’s spring ritual.

You see, each year at this time Cindy visits a large, seasonal plant stand in a nearby drug-store parking lot. The stand is called Larry’s.  Larry’s is owned by a guy named Jeff.  Not sure why.

Cindy’s been going there for more than 25 years.

We have in our backyard 2,543 pots – ceramic, metal, wooden, some giant like elephantine cereal bowls, others as tiny as thimbles.

Okay, I exaggerate.  But we do have a lot of pots, and it’s Cindy’s mission to fill them each spring with the oranges, reds, yellows, whites and purples of God’s hothouse.

This spring would be no different, she vowed.  But recognizing the danger of a new pup with massive paws, she put in a prudent first round of plants – a half-dozen pots and no more.

And then we waited.

Nellie, like her breed, prefers to remain vigilant at night. Though she has no sheep or goats to tend, she’s driven to sit outside to scout the dark while we sleep. It’s a good arrangement … she doesn’t bark, so the neighbors don’t know.  We sleep better because she doesn’t rattle around in her crate.

It’s also then that she wanders, sniffing here and there and digging into what smells especially interesting.

So the last two mornings we’ve edged outdoors to see the damage, expecting upended salvia, lythrum, lantana and cosmos ground into a carpet of potting soil.

Hasn’t happened. 

Oh, she’s noticed the plants.  Last night, as we sat outside, Nellie visited each pot and inhaled the scents like a child in a rose garden.

I think that’s the difference – she senses the order of things, when flowers are neatly planted, their smells combining softly. 

That's so unlike a barren pot or box filled with dirt untouched since fall.  Then it invites her to turn it like a farmer, to breathe in the rich promise below.

We’re going to reward Nel for her discretion, we’ve decided.

We’re going to pull out those Target cushions.  And I’ll shovel in some clean dirt.

After all, a queen needs her throne.

Especially when the queen is just.