Pests in the garden- how to keep them out in a nontoxic way?

Here is a site with some good ideas and suggestions for keeping your pets safe while keeping critters out of your veg garden: http://www.wikihow.com/Keep-Animals-Out-of-Your-Vegetable-Garden

Good luck!

get some irish spring body soap. cut in chunks or shred it and throw around the area you want the critters to leave alone. They won't dig in them anymore.

depending on the size of your dogs and whether or not they are capable of jumping. My husband took PVC pipe and put it above where are our dog could jump. they have a mesh fencing at Lowes and we tied to the PVC pipe with plastic ties.

The Irish Spring bar soap does work, I also put down Cayenne powder. If the rodents are persistent put down mouse traps baited with peanut butter and when they try to get the peanut butter it will scare them away from that area when it snaps. The mouse traps are too small to catch the wiley squirrels and chipmunks, so they are safe, but it should keep them away that area for a good while. I have seen up to two months before they came back to my huge half barrel planters. I noticed some scratching and a small hole about 1/2 inch deep this morning and my elephant ears are just finally starting to come up.