I run them through the shredder and compost them. But you could just use them as mulch if you wanted.

I collect the cones from 3 pines. Each year, my dog and I pick up the equivalent of three 55-gallon drums full of cones. I run them all through the shredder, and it yields about three 5-gallon buckets full, which I use as mulch in one part of the garden. After a few years of this, I've got a layer 3" deep and about 15 square feet in area. It looks great, and is very long lasting.

I'm not sure it's worth the effort, but the dog enjoys policing up the cones. She picks them up and deposits them in a 5-gallon bucket. When it's full, she carries the bucket to the pile, sets it down and tips it over, spilling out the contents. It's very funny to watch this process. She has no pattern at all. She'll take a cone from here to the bucket, then go off to an entirely different spot for the next cone.

Too sweet Donn! Got any tricks to teach a Black Lab to fetch? Raven gets the stick/ball, but then runs away with it... In terms of the stick, she'll shred it and compost it all on her own too. :)

Labs are one of the easiest breeds to teach to retrieve, it's in their genes.

You have to make it worth her while. Fill your pocket with her favorite treat, and make sure she sees you putting them in there. Red's favorite is baby carrots.

Then toss the ball, and when she picks it up, hold out a treat and call her to you. When she comes for the treat, snatch the ball out of her mouth, sit her, and tell her what a good girl she is. Make a ceremony out of presenting her with the treat.

After several episodes like this, start replacing the treat with nothing but the "good girl" praise. Just give the treat at the beginning and end of the session.

Red's love of pine cones started a bit backwards. When she was a pup, she would watch me picking up the cones. I used to carry the bucket around, set it down in an area where there were lots of cones, and toss them toward the bucket. She'd fetch them and bring them back to me. She even took them out of the bucket to return them to me.

It took a lot of carrots to get her to understand what I wanted. She pooped orange for days, but she caught on.

Thanks! Sweet!

That is REALLY sweet. I'm just sitting here basking in the warm glow. I've never even been to YouTube, but I would go just to see video of that.