[permaculture] Dogs in the Design

Bryce Ruddock bruddockjr at wi.rr.com
Mon Jun 8 20:11:40 EDT 2009


   If the client is unwilling to confine the large dogs to a pen or indoors, or to take them somewhere off site where they can run to their hearts content at least once a day then the design will need to incorporate some year round dog deterrents. The plants that give a disagreeable odor repelling to dogs won't work in a Minnesota environment for much of the year.
    Try something thorny or prickly. If the client wants a true permaculture design offer various degrees of pet deterrrents from hedges to fences with vines. Try rugosa hedge roses, nettles, and junipers that also yield berries.Look for varying heights and patterns of the roses and junipers.Plant as a hedge with a multilayered pattern so that there will be various layers to the pet barrier and lastly put a fence behind it all as the final deterrent.The client needs to articulate their design requirements as regards the dogs so that you can make the adjustments to the design that can allow for the pets to have some space and the plantings to be protected.
    In regards to another post about the composting of the dog waste:forget about the "biodegradeable plastic bags. T'aint no such thing no how. Every link to manufacturers of these types of bags that I have followed all the way back to the corporate site detail the production process and always include polyethylene in the molecular structure of the resin plastic base of the finished product. When it breaks down the starch molecules from corn, soybeans, switchgrass, or whatever the miracle plant of the moment is always leaves behind the bits of polyethylene plastic that bound it all together. At the cellular/nano molecular level this very small near invisible to the discerning human eye can still wreak havoc in natural systems. Put the doggie-doo in a paper lunch bag and compost it with lots of gree and dry matter and then use the end result as a tree fertilizer. No plastic in and no plastic in the result.
  Also by way of experimentation I last year brought home 3 plastic biodegradeable drink cups from the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in mid June. I received my PDC certificate at their site in May 2008.We had been assured by their staff that the plastics would degrade but after looking at their compost heaps and seeing the same cups in there from a year eaelier and knowing that the fair is the only event that could have generated the waste we decided to do a few tests of our own. One cup was crushed. Another was torn into strips, and a third left intact. All were added to a large compost heap with plenty of organic matter. The heap was activated weekly with human urine.   
    This spring we had a beautiful 3 cubic yards of compost and the following: I crushed plastic cup, 1 torn into strips plastic cup, and 1 whole plastic cup. If they can biodegrade it may not be in my lifetime and I do not feel like waiting those hundreds of years for it to happen. Like mom used to say "Garbage in. Garbage out." Follow the links back to the plastics manufacturers and what you'll find is a whole lotta bull backed by 14th Amendment "people" such as Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Dow, and Monsanto.When you get to the process links and read the chemistry there it will be:petrochemical plastics.              Bryce Ruddock

"... To climb these coming crests
 one word to you and your children: 
stay together      
learn the flowers   
go light"

Gary Snyder {from For The Children}


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