Canine Grazers
Perhaps it is genetic, this digging in the lawn.
By the time I catch them at it, they look up and they are gone.
I view the damage they have done, and although it is bad,
it’s not as worrisome as the snacks that they have had
burrowing into the soil, moist and rich and black.
The vet says eating soil to gain the nutrients they lack.
I buy them special dogfood, give them cereal for snacks,
buy various healthy dog chews by the box and by the sacks,
but still I view them digging, noses shrouded by the grass.
First just one and then they mine my lawn for sustenance en masse.
Must I invest in stanchions to keep their heads erect
so they’ll only consume the healthy food that I select?
But then I see that Zoe has something in her mouth.
When I move north to see what it may be, she zigzags south,
but finally she gasps for air, releasing something squirmy—
something rolled into a ball, but definitely wormy!
I beat her to the draw and scoop the huge grub up.
Quite a complete mouthful for such a little pup.
I took its picture with my phone and flushed it down the loo,
then tried to figure out the next thing I should do.
They’d infested all my garden, all their feeding sites turned brown,
and much as I despise taking any creature down,
the bacteria they carried could be harmful for a tummy
that could not resist them ’cause they tasted so damn yummy.
I Google it and hours later, finally I find
that they were a garden grub of the cutworm kind.
Coffee grounds and and eggshells might curb enthusiasms
for these juicy creatures that were cause for all the chasms,
and yet they’d just move elsewhere so I’m off to find cure
that will lead to a solution calculated to endure.
At least the mystery is solved, though still without solution
until I find a natural means that will not cause pollution
that will seep into the water or the tummies of my kids.
A beneficial nematode that doesn’t harm, yet rids
my grass of all these chewers that in turn are being chewed
by dogs-o-mine who’ve discovered they make a yummy food!
Prompts today are soil, viewers, gasp, shroud, cereal, stanchion and genetic. All photos by jdb
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
Cute poem, Judy. Those grubs look very similar to the Japanese beetle grubs that plague lawns here, which then cause a mole problem. Not sure if diatomaceous earth is bad for puppy gullets or the grubs but maybe research on it can give you the answers you seek.
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Yes.. I could see that. The reason I decided that they were cutworms is because of their grayish cast and their “helmets” are much darker than the Japanese Beetle grubs or the whitegrubs.
Diatomaceous Earth or coffee grounds or crushed eggshells are good non-toxic repellants for the grubs, but first I’m trying to keep the dogs away with chili powder and by scattering their poops over the area. This supposedly keeps them away. I’m having friends save eggshells and coffee grounds for me as well. If this doesn’t work I’ll try one other natural repellant.. I’ve forgotten its name as I left my shopping list in the car.
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Bt is a harmless fungus that gets into the larvae’s digestive tracts so they don’t morph into moths. There is another plant-based one, pyrethrin (sp?)
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We civilize them, but there’s all the great stuff in the dirt. Now Duke? He won’t even eat raw eggs or bread, much less something icky from the garden, but he’s more than a little weird in his eating habits! ALL the other dogs we’ve had loved to eat pretty much anything and everything. Never had such a finicky eater before.
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These grubs are huge and disgusting but you’d think they were fresh oysters for Zoe. She slurps them up.
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I find oysters disgusting too. I think they treasure eating something — well — alive. There are feral creatures hiding in our pups!
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Yuck. Zoe is also pretty fond of ice cream though. I just let her lick my bowl after I’ve finished. Vanilla only.
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Does he take after his dad?
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You’re having quite a problem here. I hope you find a humane and echo friendly solution
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Yes, it has to be safe for the groundwater, soil and my doggies Otherwise, I’ll just be a grazing station for cutter worms.
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That’s true.
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