Solar Power goes to the Dogs

I've been wanting a pond for a while, no big secret there, and the other week we stumbled upon one being sold at our neighbor's yard sale!! Liner & pump, only $25 = SOLD!!! We finally have gotten it in the ground and ordered a solar pump to go with it. We decided that any new "additions" needed to be green ones. I know this photo doesn't show the pond full, or even the pump in there, or even the other flowers we've added around it, but it gives you an idea. We're now eagerly looking forward to adding some water plants and some fish.

One thing that we knew we needed to be a little concerned about though was the dogs. We have an 8 year old Chocolate Lab and a 9 week old American Bulldog/Bandogge Mastiff mix. This isn't intended as a swimming pool for them!! So, we were annoyed but not surprised when we walked out the other day only to find that they had been playing (read "digging") in the mulch and un-dug most of the front of the pond. Ok, put it all back, and now we have a little fence up around that area - going from the rosemary bush across the front of the pond, to the flowers.

Yesterday we come out and they've gone around the new flowers, dug up most of the irises, the coreopsis, and the solar panel. We fixed it all, put them back in the ground (plants, not the dogs), and added some more things to block them from getting in.

Today, I noticed that the solar panel has been broken off of the little spike it rested atop. I'm praying it still works - it is cloudy and overcast, so none of our solar fountains are currently running. I replanted another dug-up iris and put up more barricades that will hopefully hold until we get more fencing up.

I knew solar power can be an expensive alternative - I just didn't think it would come in the form of "because our dogs keep destroying it!"