06/13/2026
If you received our recent newsletter, you may have been inspired to garden for yourself and your dogs! My senior sweetheart, Tiramisu, helped me plant a little at our house today, and I wanted to share my progress, ideas, and difficulties. If you follow my dog training page, Cerberus Dog Training Services , you may have seen my posts about gardening for dogs in years past. Well, I have a new house, a bigger yard, and a blank slate, so now I am trying to figure out where to plant and what I want. On my deck, I have started some dog friendly herbs (oregano, basil, thyme), and have some tomatoes and peppers in containers. I have a few dog safe decorative plants as well to beautify the area. Out in the bigger yard, I am trying to plant as many native pollinators as I can while balancing safety for my dogs. I also love some plants that are not native and are mildly toxic to dogs, such as peonies (mostly the roots are toxic). I know my dogs have historically been uninterested in peonies, so I feel safe planting them. In the main yard, I also plant dog safe herbs so that my pups can sniff around and safely nibble. That said, there is a bunch of morning glory near my plantings and morning glory is toxic to dogs. I really would love for it to vine up my fence, and I know from experience that my pups have never messed with it in the past...but I might pull it just to be safe. The rule for me is that my dogs can run through anything that is planted in the yard, even if they smash it. It's there for us both - and as we know, daily enrichment is vital to senior dogs' cognitive health. Anything I want to eat or preserve gets put into a container. As you can see, I have A LOT of work to do in my personal yard, but I'm happy to finally be working on it. What are you planting this summer?
