Garden Mascot Neala, Soft-coated Wheaten Terrier
The Family Pet.
Neala is our garden poster dog, which is to say she does not dig holes, bury bones, or demolish plants in our garden beds. The garden shots on this blog are primarily from my home garden, which is a little plot of land surrounded by a chain link fence. It is every dog’s dream yard because there is a fence along the back lane. What makes it a dream yard is the fact that, even though the fence is covered in Virginia Creeper along three sides of the yard – it is easy for any dog worth its salt to see through the fence and out into the lane to bark at people and pets as they stroll along to some unknown destination.
To the east, the neighbour owns a cat that spends a fair bit of time outside. The owner, very responsible for the care of his cat, keeps it on a leash. The cat seems to amuse itself by walking along at the end of the leash closest to our yard, where our dog can see it and go wild.
To the west, there is a yard free of dogs and cats but full of visiting rabbits and squirrels (this is our neighbour Anne’s yard), and just beyond, the next yard has two and sometimes three dogs expressing well wishes to Neala as she sets a chain of loud greetings into motion from her own property.
Yes, it is a dog’s paradise back there.
Each spring, I walk Neala through the garden along the narrow, brick pathway and over the pebbled stepping stones in the middle of the main garden. I point out to her in no uncertain terms that she is not to stomp through this garden on her way to the back fence. By some act of grace, she seems to remember this simple rule. It is amazing to think that I have large garden in the direct path towards her alley runway, yet she manages to head straight down the sidewalk without taking shortcuts and stomping through the cosmos, delphiniums, snap dragons, and yarrow. It is one of those little miracles. She does squish down the lily-of-the-valley along the fence on the garden side, but I don’t scold her about it – these plants are hardy enough and always recover sufficiently to come back the next year. Her well-worn path keeps thistles at bay as well as dandelions, so this space at the back of the yard belongs to her.
Apart from the noise she makes when participating in her all-too-familiar greet-the-backlane-travellers ritual, she is a reasonably well-behaved garden visitor. In any case, she has such a sweet face, it is difficult to be annoyed with her for long.
Neala is a soft-coated wheaten terror, I mean soft-coated wheaten terrier. She is not really a garden visitor, but is more like a mascot, because this is, after all, her home turf.
In the featured photographs, taken a year apart, she is flanked by salvia and Russian sage.
Photo & Text: NK
Photo ID: 1308_56, 1308_57
Location: Home garden
Copyright: cookiebuxton.com
