Doodle don’t

Up until I got my first dog at age 50, I would have told you I was a “cat person”, but once we got Bear, and then added Bella a year later, I was hooked. I can’t imagine ever being without a dog again.  Bear and Bella were both golden doodles. We decided on doodles because my son is allergic, and we all really wanted a dog.  That son will turn 30 this year, and hasn’t lived with us since he was 19 years old, so we no longer ‘need’ doodles.  However, after years of dealing with cat fur, I love that they don’t shed, and I wasn’t ready to give that up.  Hence, our two current dogs, Willow, now age 2, and Rocky, an energetic almost 10 month old, are also doodles (Bernedoodles). 

But as much as I love our dogs (and their no-shed coats), there are certain times of the year that I am forced to admit that having doodles on a farm is not necessarily a great idea.  Late summer is definitely one of those times!  Bear and Bella started their lives as city dogs, but the challenge of doodles in the country became apparent immediately upon our move to the farm. We arrived at Green Arces toward the end of summer in 2019, and the dogs immediately introduced us to hackelia seeds, the stickiest of the sticky seeds.  No surprise it is often referred to by the common name of “stick tight”.  Their first day on the farm the dogs took a brief explore through the underbrush and returned so matted in tiny green “burrs” that it took a couple of hours, a comb, a brush and a pair of scissors to get them cleaned up.   Since then, we have learned what hackelia looks like BEFORE it goes to seed, and make an effort to pull the plants when they are young. Unfortunately this year, Gary, our chief hackelia puller, was limited by a bum knee. Even when he is totally on his game, we never get them all! And trust me, there are many other types of sticky seeds out here as well.  Our dogs, who walk with us off leash on the back of the property, have introduced us to all of them.  In the late spring and early summer they collect bedstraw seeds, which at the time seem like a huge hassle.  But in the grand scheme of things, bedstraw seeds come out of their coats fairly easily.  It just takes some gentle combing.   

In late summer all the other sticky seeds make me pine for a couple of bedstraw balls instead.  In addition to hackelia, the dogs are regularly collecting seeds from desmodium (tick trefoil), burdock (Beggers buttons), Bidens frondosa (Devils beggar-ticks or devils pitchfork), agrimony (sticklewort, with seeds I describe as ‘little green tops’), sanicula odorata, and others whose names I don’t know.  

This year, we seem to have raised bumper crops of all of them, with tick trefoils leading the pack. It doesn’t help that Rocky loves to roam, roam, roam and collects the seeds in amazing abundance.  Willow tends to be a little more restrained in her adventures off trail, unless she sees something to chase, but she still brings home her fair share.

In the past couple of weeks, I have spent many hours sitting on the floor with the dogs, combing, brushing and cutting sticky seeds out of their coats, just to have them reload on their next walk. 

In hindsight, that would be why, before we adopted Willow, Gary suggested we might want to consider a short haired dog.  But I just couldn’t face the idea a house full of dog fur, so I stubbornly insisted on doodles.  At least, as I sit on the floor combing dogs each evening, he has been kind enough to not say “I told you so”.  And we adore Willow and Rocky, so I can’t regret my decision.   But if you live out in the country and are thinking of adding a dog to your family, I have to concede the point to Gary; A doodle might not be the best choice.  And if you want to study all the seeds in SE Michigan that spread by hitchhiking on animals, come on over and I will lend you the comb so you can see what the dogs are bringing home.