Early this morning, when Nick and I brought the dogs into the backyard for their first outing of the day, the first thing out of my husband’s mouth was, “What happened to the tree?”
Stopping in my tracks, I followed Nick’s gaze to the mangled, wilting tree. “Oh no, I totally forgot to tell you." I sighed. "Toby got to it.”
“What?” Nick turned and glared menacingly at the dog, his voice a mixture of anger and remorse. “But he hasn’t touched it in ages.”
The spring after we first moved into our home, Nick’s mom – Alys – gave us a lovely gift. Knowing that I admired the flowering beauty that she was growing in her backyard, she took a cutting from it, grew it into a sapling, and then gave us a hand-reared baby tree.
Shortly afterwards, we adopted Toby – a dog with an obsession for obliterating plants.
Our Lab goes out of his way to uproot, pull down, rip and tear anything green in the yard – from Evergreens to Hostas to Poison Ivy. And once he has done his dastardly deed, he proudly carries the dying plant around in his mouth, its entrails trailing behind him, much to the dismay of my highly allergic husband.
So, although it was upsetting, it came as no surprise when Toby became fixated on that poor little sapling. Every time it grew more than a foot or two, he ripped its branches bare. Yet year after year, the tiny tree grew back, increasingly deformed, with its branches spread out in different directions, since its trunk had been torn down the middle no less than three times.
Finally, after watching the little fighter struggle so hard to survive, Nick built a fenced enclosure around the tree, large enough to keep out an elephant. It deterred the dog for a while, and the tree actually grew fairly large over the past few years.
This winter, driven by boredom thanks to his various disorders and a whole lot of ice, Toby tore down the fencing, piece by piece, carrying it around the yard as if it were a horseshoe of roses and he had just won the Kentucky Derby. But he left the tree alone.
That is, until last night. Preoccupied with attempting to entice Meadow to play fetch with me, I hadn't been paying attention to Toby until I heard a strange grunting sound. When I looked across the yard, I saw him, tree in mouth and an evil glint in his eye as he tugged on it with all of his might.
“NO!” I screamed – but it was too late…
Nick says it won’t survive this last butchering, and he blames my dog. (He has disowned Toby as of this morning.)
What do you think? Will it survive this latest attack?
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