This Old House Hour.... Really!?!?!?!?

[digitS']

The neighbor I was referring to does have 3 small dogs and that tiny expanse of grass seems to be almost entirely for their "business." The great efforts at mowing and fertilizing and irrigating goes pretty much awry by summer when that KBG begins to show the effects of the dogs' business activity .

Yeah, the rest of the yard is gravel . . . . . . .

Oh, near the big veggie garden, it is all BIG lots, acreage. I see neighbors there mowing, mowing, mowing - for hours and hours! A couple have no other use for the land as best as I see. Whatever kids are around are never out in the south 5, or wherever.

I know some tell me that they enjoy being out on their riding lawn mowers. One obviously doesn't. He has killed every plant on about 3 acres for at least 4 or 5 years now. That's right, it is just dirt. Luckily, it is over a little hill where I don't have to see it from the garden but there that expanse of bareness is, every time I drive out .

I just appreciate being surrounded by life a little more, I guess.

Steve

 

[hoodat]

I used to have an old book on plant nursery care printed in the 1920s. It was titled (ironically) The Modern Nursery. I remember that it went into great detail about sod compost as the perfect potting soil. Basically what they did was lay down a layer of sod grass up and top that off with a layer grass down and then kept alternating the layers. I guess people were more patient then because they said it took several years to all compost down.

 

[Jared77]

Cane it can be a process but it can be done. Its often best done in the spring/summer time since your going to be out there with them. Its a process but training any behavior takes time and making it a point to go through with it.

First off you have to designate a specific area for them to go. I've already got an area marked off with some short decorative fencing. Its more for people so they don't go walking through and step on a "landmine" but it does help give the dog(s) a "place" to go to so they know where to go. It doesn't have to be something special, so long as its something they can distinguish. Tall grass, a certain cluster of trees, a pile of gravel, a short fence etc.

Next you need to get some small treats that the dog(s) like. Keep them handy and the dog ONLY gets them when they do their business in that area. I use a ziploc sized sandwich bag in my pocket with the treats. When we go out the bag goes into the pocket when I'm done the bags put up but its always got treats in it to help make it easier for me to get out with them.

Then you have take them out on leash and wait with them while they go. Take them to the area you want them to go and stand put. Your literally an anchor. Its ok to pivot but don't wander around. You keep the dog inside the area you want them to go, and just wait. They literally can only roam around this area because the leash is only ___ long. I like a 6ft leash but that's just me. Its honestly better to use a regular leash than one of the retracting ones so your not tempted to let them have more length to go off and wander around. The more they can wander the more likely they are to not go where you want them to and the longer it can take. If you only have a 12ft circle you can sniff they'll quickly smell all the smells and then decide its time to go since Mom's not letting me wander around. You just have to be firm about not wandering with them. Stay in the area, they'll go quickly enough.

Soon as they relieve themselves, you have to praise them and tell them how great they are doing. Use a silly happy voice. Get animated like them going there was the best thing they could have done. Seriously. Give them a treat. And when they go in, they go back inside on leash. Then they can be off leash and hang out. Even if its just #1 lots of praise. If its #2 even better. Every time they go outside to go potty, clip the leash on, take them to their spot, you stand put keeping them in their area and PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE & treat

If they are going to go outside with you and hang out, then make them go there first to go. Leave them on leash. Let them drag the leash, it won't hurt anything. If they start to go, snatch up the leash, and run them over to the area you want them to go in and again praise praise praise & treat. Usually once they get moving they'll stop going since they often don't want to walk and go. Get them in the area and wait till they go. Even if its a little bit since you caught them going elsewhere its a big deal because they went where you want them to go. Again praise and treat.

It takes a little while. It can be work and with multiple dogs its that much more work. Soon you'll create the behavior where they go where you want them to. Your just creating a new behavior. No different than sit or anything else. The more you work with them on it the faster they'll get it. If your not consistent it will take even longer.

At our old house (before we bought this one) we taught them to go to the edge of the weeds to go. No stopping between here and there, you go out there to go. It was tall grass and they know run out there and they go just fine. Took a little bit but soon it was just an ingrained behavior and they know I go potty there. Its no different than housebreaking. They learn they can't go in the house, and they learn go over there when its time for me to go.

If you take them out and its been a while and they still won't go put them up. Be it in their crate or in the house. Try again a little bit. Same steps leash on, walk them to the target area, and stand with them. Bring them back in and leash off.

Once they start going there on their own you can take the leash off and encourage them to go there. Still praise them up. Then you start just dropping back and they go while you stay at the door. Praise when they go, and praise when they come back. Next thing you know they are out in the yard with you and they'll walk over there and go on their own. Our dogs do that now and its wonderful.

You'll be so glad you put the work into it. Its easy to do, just takes a little time and effort. Then you can put one of these http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=570 near by and your all set. Clean ups a breeze just be sure the hose is close enough to "flush" they system.

Hope this helps. If you have a question or a problem don't hesitate to ask

 

[thistlebloom]

I totally understand wanting an open area for kids to play. I guess that my frustration was that they even brought in extra equipment to till up right next to the house and fence so that they could plant grass 'wall to wall'. As far as I could see, there werent any other plants in the yard. I was actually being funny (a little) but it has opened up a good discussion.
I don't have any kids. I do have dogs. Jared, if you could share how to train them to do their business in a certain spot I would be very grateful.
I hope, little by little, to turn most of my yard into either gardens of one sort or another or chicken pens. I'm tired of spending time mowing grass. I'd be much happier tending beds of flowers/veggies. When we bought the land the intention was that this would be 'the meeting place' for family events. We set out lots of yard and grassy areas for various uses. But after my husband passed I sort of became invisible. (People don't know what to do with someone who is no longer half of a couple.) So, the older I get - the more all this grass tending is becoming a nuisance. Instead of spending hours listening to the mower and weedeater drone on, Id rather be gathering flowers to beautify the house or my office. Instead of toting gas cans, Id rather be toting baskets of eatable goods to friends and neighbors.

I knew you were making fun of the program Cane and rightly so, and I get the reasons lawns can be such a target.

I myself am a little conflicted about ours although there is no possible way on earth I can handle many more beds, be they flower or veg.
They are arguably more maintenance, ( okay, this is where I insert what our attitude is about lawn maintenance - keep it mowed, let the clippings lay, fertilize once a year, water deeply but infrequently, call the weeds diversity ). If I didn't have the "lawn" I would have a howling wilderness of weeds. And it's a great place to play frisbee with the dogs, croquet with friends, and trust me, croquet on our lawn is a challenge!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I lost count how many times I hear that Scottish sounding fellow pushing fertilizer, crab grass inhibitor, and what not.

I love it when he says his grass seed will grow, even if you miss a day of watering. For some reason that cracks me up to think that people believe that ........stuff.

I look at my yard as forage for chickens. If all they can get is grass, well, they'll get a little nutrition from that. It's better than nothing. But if they can get different kinds of grass and weeds, grass seeds and weed seeds, and all kinds of creepy crawlies, now that is a balanced diet!

 

[canesisters]

Well Jared, since my dogs go out when I leave for work and spend all day in the yard, I don't think that I will have very much luck with 'potty training' them. They will have hours and hours to go where ever they want before I follow them around in the evening hoping to catch them and take them to the proper place. :/ Although I wonder if collecting all the poo and putting it in a certain place will entice them.

Thistle, there will ALWAYS be some yard. Where else would I put the lawn furniture? But having to put in 2 or 3hrs every saturday mowing and 2 more weedeating is just getting to be TOO MUCH. It's loud and smelly and I think that I'd much more enjoy shrubs, veggies, flowers, pretty and unusual leaves, birds and bugs living in gracefully curved beds. Places that need orniments & decoration - and a reason to create them. I guess what I'm hoping to create is a refuge of sorts. I just keep thinking that there is something wrong that I spend hours and hours working and then collapse in the hammock exhausted - and all I've got to show for it is lots and lots of tidy, well trimmed grass.

 

[thistlebloom]

Whoa cane! If you're spending 5 hours a week on lawn chores no wonder you're burnt out!
I think your idea of lots of curving beds sounds wonderful and way more fun than mowing!

 

[digitS']

And, Cane' . .

. think about "Still Life with Mulch" and "Mulch Ado about Nothing."

Just trying to give you some ideas about low-maintenance.

Steve

 

[baymule]

All this talk about useless wide expanses of lush, verdant, carefully tended grass! Why not have both beautiful lawn grass AND a beautiful garden? I am not favoring 3 acres of yard and no garden, nor am I in favor of "weed and feed". No poisons here! I like my mix of green.


Ya'll know the difference between us and the "OCD lawn experts"? The OCD'ers want to impress their neighbors with their perfect lawn. We don't care if our outdoor activities impress our neighbors, as long as we are happy with our yards/gardens.

Ok, now it is confession time. I used store bought lawn fertilizer on the small patch of green grass in the front yard. We had a terrible drought the past couple of years and it was looking real raggedy. In reality, I wouldn't waste my precious compost on a grass yard that I can't eat and saved the good stuff for the garden!

 

[ninnymary]

canesisters, sounds like you need to get rid of some of that grass and put in a low maintenance yard with native plants, drought tolerant plants and lots of perennials.

Mary