You might remember my blog a few months back, in which I described the appearance of a mole in my garden. The garden is situated in an old farmyard, surrounded on all four sides by buildings. The offending mole is now racing all over the place, trying to find its way out.
Generally we find this situation quite amusing as the mole isn’t doing much harm and we have got some quite good potting compost from the molehills. However, our dogs have taken this invasion very seriously and have decided to take matters into their own hands. We went out the other morning to discover both of them upended in the flower bed digging an enormous hole in an effort to chase down the offending mole. Sadly, though charming, they’re not terribly good at either physics or geography and began their excavations so far up the slope that we worked out that they would have to tunnel down about five feet before getting within a sniff of the mole. The mole still thrives. The dogs had to be bathed.
Anyway, the appearance of a sort of open cast mine in the middle of one of my borders really didn’t matter that much. Had they done it in June then I would be spitting nails and weeping bitter tears, but in early December? Who cares? Most of the herbaceous stuff has died back, the bulbs haven’t started and they had a fabulous morning.
All I need to do is fill in the holes, fork over the compacted soil and wait. However, it is probable that there are many better ways of deterring moles rather than allowing two Tibetan terriers to do the job.
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Bring in a Dachsund. The only time I’ve seen a mole was when I was a kid, and our Dachsund had caught one and was playing with it (a warm and moving squeaky toy). He got a little too enthusiastic and ended the fun by biting its head off.
Here in Belgium we’re allowed to by a dveice called a Détaupeur – google for info – which explodes the offending mole in his tunnel. It’s very satisfactory.
However we now also have a rescue dog with a great deal of Tibetan Terrier in her make up and she likes to dig for victory when she hears a mole tunelling. Sometimes our “lawn” looks more like WW1 trenches. She too needs a bath afterwards, especially when she’s been excavating near the natural pond and its boggy borders.
We live in France and have a rescue dog that we think is a Tibetan Terrier X-ever since she’s been here she has dug holes near where a mole is tunnelling and finally in April I found her on the lawn wagging her tail at a mole! Dont think she was too impressed that I took it away as she’s never caught one since. However our Yorkshire terrier caught one a few years ago and killed it!
Hmmmm. When I come to this site, I don’t really want to read about people feeling satisfaction when a sentient being is inhumanely killed, even if you want to call it a pest.
I hope such a ‘device’ is not and will never be allowed here in the UK.
Hear, hear Michaela.
What sort of person gets pleasure from killing a small harmless creature. I welcome all wildlife into my garden as a safe haven. Shameful.
perhaps you need a cat, my son had a mole in his garden, and his cat lay in wait, after two days he finally got his reward and left the mole as a present for my son
On the large estate where I garden sonic mole repellers are very effective but only for the area around them.I also use strips of rag soaked in disinfectant (or cheap perfume!) poked down the mole holes and have tried pieces of copper tubing inserted in the runs. The moles are far less of a problem when the lawns are being regularly mown as they don’t like the vibration of the mower!