Gardeners' World presenter Monty Don has revealed that his cherished dog Ned has been "in a complete state" recently. The 70- year-old shared the update while appearing on the Dig It podcast with hosts Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley, where he answered questions from listeners and chatted about life alongside his dogs.

During the discussion, Jo enquired whether there were methods to make a garden more puppy-friendly ahead of welcoming a new pet.

In reply, the BBC star conceded there is little that can be done to avoid some of the realities of keeping dogs in the garden.

"They will pee on the lawn and there will be brown circles and there's not much you can do about it," he said.

"I often get asked, 'How do you make a garden dog-friendly?' And I sort of pontificate and go out into the garden with Ned and then he crashes through the garden and knocks something over."

Monty further suggested that he believes dogs adapt instinctively to gardens if they are incorporated into daily routines from the start.

"I do think actually that if you have them with you in the garden from day one, they will go where you go and do what you do and I think there is something in that," he explained.

"Whereas, if there's anxiety involved from the beginning and you let them out and it's all, 'I hope they don't do this or that', I think that transmits.

"But, if you potter about with them, they get used to that." Monty went on to say that his dog Ned - a recognisable presence to audiences of Gardeners' World, frequently filmed at his Longmeadow garden - is currently not quite his usual self.

"He's in a complete state at the moment," he told the hosts. "My son's dog is in season and he's not eating, he's not sleeping, he's barking - he's completely sex-starved. And of course, being Ned, he doesn't know what to do. [It's] not good."

Monty currently has two dogs, Ned, a golden retriever who first featured on Gardeners' World in 2022, and Patti, a Yorkshire terrier.

Having kept dogs for the majority of his life, the presenter says he is seldom in his garden without them.

In a post on his website, he wrote: "I have lived with dogs all my life and so it is absolutely natural to me that wherever I am in the garden I should be accompanied by a dog or two. It is their garden as much as mine or any other members of the family.

"Something that I take for granted is that, by and large, they do absolutely no damage and respect the garden completely. They rarely dig holes or crash through the flower beds," he added.

"They do treat the long paths as bowling alleys down which they career in chase of the ball that we are obliged to throw, but it is harmless enough."

Monty's podcast appearance comes just weeks after he announced that his dog Peggy had died.

In a poignant tribute, he disclosed she was "a few weeks short of her 16th birthday" and had "lived gently and without fuss".

He went on to say that she would be laid to rest in the coppice within his garden, where a number of his former dogs, including Nigel and Nell, are also buried.