dogs vs lawn

[patandchickens]

thanks Pat ... its a chronic thing and its right off the patio block -- I guess if I follow the dogs out and "kick" the offender in the butt to make her go out further in the yard ... sometimes that doesn't work though

I've known a few dogowners who've created a special 'pee depot' in their yard specifically to prevent lawn damage. It's usually put in some back corner but I guess it could really be anywhere as long as it's not right near some valuable shrub or tree. Take out topsoil from the area (the only one I can remember well enough to visualize the dimensions was maybe 8x8'?). Install a post (one person had a fire hydrant! dunno if real or replica) in the center. Replace the removed topsoil with a buncha medium-size gravel. I don't know how the other peoples' was constructed but if I were doing it myself I think I'd put it on top of some sand or roadbase or crappy useless topsoil, for filtering and buffering. Then train the dog to use this area, and nowhere else, for its business. The people I knew had the dogs sorta mostly kinda trained to poo there as well, which I guess helped with overall tidiness. I was told by one person that they hosed the area off once a week during dry weather, I guess to help flush the pee through.

Might be worth trying. Otherwise you may just end up with pee-killed spots elsewhere in your lawn...

I will give it a good raking this spring, lime it and reseed then. Any harm in putting the mulch on it this winter to help reduce the mud?

Nope, as long as you think you really need to reseed as opposed to hoping the grass grows back on its own, go ahead and mulch it to deal with the present mud. Just make sure to rake as much mulch as possible off it (remove and use elsewhere in garden or compost pile) before loosning soil and reseeding.

Have 'fun' ,

Pat

 

[Presto]

I trained my one dog who is great about pooping in the back of the yard but I can not get my older female to go back there, she does not even use the entire yard unless she is chasing a squirrle out of it. & Where ever she pee's he pee's ontop of. I dont think I will ever have a yard , the way its set up I can't keep them off the area they tore up playing & urinating on.

 

[Presto]

LOL, Today was the first cut for the lawn, & umm, it actually looks nice & lush & green but just in one area, of course the area that I would love to be green, is dirt. My entire yard is fenced in so my dogs have the run of the place but the soil & grass in this one 12X12 area was never really good. So now its just hard dirt, except when I went over it with the lawn mower then of course DUST.

 

[akyramoto]

i had the same problem, my yard looked like the moon. I had to build a dog run with rocks in the bottom. I also did this becuase I have foxtails everywhere on my property & was getting tired of pulling them out of my dogs.

I hope you get it figured out! I right there with ya on hating the mud & dirt getting tracked into the house. ( I built my run close to my house - where doggies wouldn't touch dirt from their pen to the house yay)

 

[Xtina]

I am having the same problem, but I'm a little more hemmed in by restrictions. Primarily, that I can't possibly keep the dogs out of any part of the tiny bit of yard that is devoted to them. It's all they've got! And they've worn out the entire middle section of grass. So I'm wondering, if grass really is the solution for my household. With two large dogs, I don't think grass can ever truly recover.

I would just throw down bark chips, but I've had reservations about doing that, mainly that I have to replenish it all the time. Then of course there's pea gravel, but it's expensive! And I don't know if I'm quite ready to resort to hardscaping to solve my problems. I may eventually resign myself to that, but not quite yet.

Does anyone have any non-grass suggestions? Or any suggestions for how I can slowly remediate my grass without keeping the dogs off a major portion of the backyard? Could I plant grass in 2X2 foot squares?

 

[2 Beauts]

Somewhere I heard that giving your dog tomato juice to drink would help with the yellow spots in the lawn..... I think it was on one of those morning news shows. If I remember correctly, it was like 8 oz a day. You could probably google it to check.

 

[Xtina]

I'm curious about any fast-growing grasses that might do well in my yard. I also have chickens eating up as much grass as they can, and that's what I want them to do because it makes their eggs so good! But I need to throw something down that will pretty much take over the yard, year after year no matter what the abuse, be it dogs, chickens, or little human feet. I don't care if it isn't grass, i know things like strawberry and mint will run wild if you let them, but that somehow doesn't seem ideal for walking on.

Regarding the yellow spots, I found suggestions for putting sugar on the spots, and feeding vitamin C or tomato juice to dogs. Here's where I found it: http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf994288.tip.html

 

[beak]

Be careful with the stuff you feed the dog. I've heard it is mostly female dogs that cause the yellow spots. Reason is because their urine is more acidic to prevent urinary tract infections. The stuff you give your dog dilutes the acid and causes UTI. May want to ask your vet.