Having four dogs running around my garden, I found that the best way to avoid the trampled plants, bent branches, and other fun stuff that happens in a garden when pets run rampant is to work out where they like to run and make them their own racing track. Most dogs love to run along fence lines to see the outside world and an easy fix is to stake a length of cheap wire (chicken or strands) about 12 - 18 inches from the fence line.
Another idea is to make stepping stones as a path where they run. Get the kids involved and collect some flat pavers or bricks, etc. and lay a track in and around your plants for the dogs to use. Maybe glue and grout some colorful tiles to the pavers (the kids have a great time helping make original works of art!) and it has the added bonus of adding lots of color to the garden when the flowering season is over.
Cheers!
By Vicki Keong from Queensland, AU
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
How do you keep your dogs from digging holes in flower bed and yard?
Drive some short stakes into the ground throughout the bed.
Extra play and chew toys to crave them from digging!
You can find some helpful tips for preventing a dog from digging in the yard at yourdogsfriend.org/
The problem is dogs love to scratch and dig in the dirt. Some dogs do it more than others. The only thing I have found to keep them out of my flower beds is a small fense that I bought at the hardware store. It just put a barrier around the flower bed and the dogs seems to stay out of them after I did this. I also added some cactus plants and plants that had thorns on them to keep the dogs out of the flower beds.
If these are your dogs, my best suggestion is just to take them out on a leash and not let them near the beds or put up fencing.
The other choice is to treat it like any other training exercise where you teach them no or leave it and reward them when they stay away from the area.
If they are other people's pooches, fencing is probably best.
Never use things like pepper sprays, bleach, or any chemicals to deter dogs from going to the area as it can cause serious harm to the animals.
Post back with your solution so others can learn what worked for you!
The best way to keep dogs from digging in a flower bed is to anchor chicken wire down around the plants. You can use plain wire cut into pieces at least 10 inches long and then bent into a "U" shape to use as anchors, just push the anchors through the chicken wire, making sure to catch at least one twist of the chicken wire, and push into the soil as far as possible.
How can you keep dogs away from flowers and vegetable plants, other than putting up a small fence? Thank you.
By Yvette from Salem, NH
There are some really good suggestions in the ThriftyFun archives below :-)
If your dog is peeing in your flower bed, it may be detrimental to the flowers in your garden. This is a page about keeping dogs from peeing in flower beds.
ThriftyFun is one of the longest running frugal living communities on the Internet. These are archives of older discussions.
I need to know of a natural, inexpensive way to keep dogs out of flower beds. I know that they like to lay in the mulch but they are killing my flowers. Help! Tabitha
