A WHITE DOG

... comes into the garden, foraging and defecating. Small, wiry, dirty-white. It wears a tartan collar. It barks loudly, permanently on-guard. It doesn’t believe the world takes it seriously enough.

The garden is a source of vegetables. The dog can’t know that. It is not welcome in the garden. I shout to drive it away.

Birds come into the garden, in their hundreds. They have a dedicated feeding station with nuts, seeds and fat-balls. They forage and defecate everywhere. Small ones flit and flurry, jostling for the best vantages.

Pigeons can’t use the food station. They bob about on the ground, snaffling the scraps and leavings of the nuts and seeds. They benefit from scraps that fall on the patch of grass beside the greenhouse or along the concrete path, that runs under the length of clothes-line.

The dog ignores the birds. They scurry off if he appears. Their food does not interest him. 

Meat scraps, such as out-of-date sausages, entice the dog. He arrives too late. Magpies and seagulls swoop early and devour them promptly. Anything they leave goes to the starlings, who arrive in grand cavalcades.

None of the birds bark. They coo, squawk, chatter, whistle and chirp. They are welcome, even on the vegetable patch. What waste they leave gets dug in. What waste they leave on the concrete path gets swept up and thrown on the compost heap. What they leave on the patch of grass lies there until it seeps in and the worms get it.

The dog is neither welcomed nor tolerated. He is barred. His access via the fence is blocked with an old roof-slate. He barks but cannot enter.

A cat comes to forage and to defecate, like the other animals. It is welcomed with titbits of sliced cooked ham, placed on the kitchen window-sill. It visits most days. It has seen off a number of rivals. No doubt it defecates somewhere, but not in our garden. It learned the lesson early on. 

“Don’t shit in your own nest” 

It was scolded early on and now comes only to forage.

The dog barks from three gardens away. It is an anxious creature.