# Dogs + Grass??? Do they exist??



## Northwoods10 (Nov 22, 2010)

Our backyard is pretty much shredded with 3 dogs tearing around. 

Does anyone have any tips for keeping a nice lawn with 3 dogs??? We need to put some new seed down and probably need new soil too. But its really hard when thats the area we encourage them to play too. Our front yard has nice green grass and its pretty thick....but we don't like them playing there b/c of how close it is to the road. 

I'm split with DH on how we feel about grass in general...my thinking is that its the back yard....nobody really sees it, and they're dogs! Let them be dogs! I don't want to tell them to slow down, you're shredding the grass!! I want my dogs to be able to have fun. His thoughts are that he does the yard work & maintinence and he wants it to look nice. Which I can understand to some extent. 

So.....ideas??? Products??? THANKS!


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## pudlemom (Jul 11, 2010)

I had the same problem it's real hard to keep grass with big dog they just tear it up with the claws when they run and play I know exactly how you feel. Me or should I say our since HD did the work lol.. was to spilt the yard in half we put a 4' fence right down the middle and filled it in with gravel and the other side is the human side with the nice lawn,well it was for awhile any way we put nice sod down and there is not a blade of it left this spring the weeds are so bad here I'm so pissed it seem like such a waste of money,but we will try to seed it again and see what happens. 

I hope you find a solution that you and the HD can live with I'm on your side tho the front yard is for show the backyard for the dogs,but to keep peace with the HD'S we have to make sacrifices *sigh*


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

No, there is no such thing as big dogs and grass. Even when I had my black chow and he didn't move much, he still had his favorite path to walk on and wore it down to plain dirt.

Now with Rocky and Shade, we have constant torn up spots (Shade running laps like a fool) numerous holes (gotta dig up those moles!!) and unknown number of brown pee stains. 

But, when my kids were small, they tore up the yard too, so it's not just the dogs. 

I just keep half my backyard as woods (well, until the tornado just went thru) and the other half is whatever green stuff will grow naturally (chickweed in the spring, some kind of green weed stuff with seeds on it now). I quit worrying about it years ago.


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## Northwoods10 (Nov 22, 2010)

chowder said:


> No, there is no such thing as big dogs and grass. Even when I had my black chow and he didn't move much, he still had his favorite path to walk on and wore it down to plain dirt.
> 
> Now with Rocky and Shade, we have constant torn up spots *(Shade running laps like a fool) *numerous holes (gotta dig up those moles!!) and unknown number of brown pee stains.
> 
> ...


Morgan & Remi literally do LAPS around the house. There is a worn path from them doing so. It pi$$es him off to no end! And thats just it too.....it would be the same with kids! I personally think he needs to get over being so anal about GRASS! LOL


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## doggiedad (Jan 23, 2011)

forget about the grass. it's the dogs yard.
if your yard is large enough you could fence in an area
for the dogs.


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## Northwoods10 (Nov 22, 2010)

doggiedad said:


> forget about the grass. it's the dogs yard.
> if your yard is large enough you could fence in an area
> for the dogs.


That will potentially be what we do...but for now....they get the back yard. I wish I could get DH to think that way!


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

You know, when you live in the south, and first a hurricane rips thru your yard and takes 12 mature trees, and then a tornado takes another 10 trees........you realize that NOTHING is permanent and grass really doesn't matter at all. What matters is the joy you get watching the dogs run around with the big dopey grins on their faces and knowing they are having such fun. Shadey spent his first 4 years tied in someones back yard before my son got him from the rescue, so I'm not about to deny him his laps around the yard.


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## RachelsaurusRexU (Sep 4, 2010)

I also have a fenced area specifically for the dogs. It's become dirt and a few weeds! No grass. We get the rest of the yard and all the grass we want. We're not that big into having a beautiful lawn, though.


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## Northwoods10 (Nov 22, 2010)

chowder said:


> You know, when you live in the south, and first a hurricane rips thru your yard and takes 12 mature trees, and then a tornado takes another 10 trees........you realize that NOTHING is permanent and grass really doesn't matter at all. What matters is the joy you get watching the dogs run around with the big dopey grins on their faces and knowing they are having such fun. Shadey spent his first 4 years tied in someones back yard before my son got him from the rescue, so I'm not about to deny him his laps around the yard.


Thank you!! 

Honestly....I don't care what our back yard looks like!! I'd rather have it lived in and torn up and have happy dogs than to have a beautiful lawn & dogs feeling like they can't enjoy themselves!! 

So...now its just convincing DH of that.....*sigh*


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## Tobi (Mar 18, 2011)

If you're terribly worried about it there is always Doggie Turf


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## SilverBeat (Jan 16, 2011)

I'm not sure how big your yard is but we were worried with the kids running around in our yard [my mom runs an in-home day care] because our grass was starting to look a little threadbare, so we seeded really heavily and then put down burlap [and then watered]. I think what helped the most was the extra seeding, because kids don't have claws that rip grass out of the ground... but do you think that might help? To kind of anchor the grass?
We did that last year and Wallaby loves to run and play in our yard, I haven't noticed any damage yet.


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## Herzo (Feb 5, 2011)

I'm going to have to agree just a little with your husband here. We live where it is so dry in the summer that our little bit of green is like a little bit of heaven, for us and the dogs. It makes it so much cooler to have the grass than just dirt. We don't have all our lawn in and also have a dirt part that's going to be a garden at some point.

We also have this problem at the shelter and I will say that a good lawn grass just won't hold up to the abuse. I'm not sure about your area and your soil but if I were you I would get an irrigated pasture mix grass and put it down. It is much tougher than lawn grass. The areas at the shelter where we just let the pasture grass grow holds up much better than where they put down very expensive sod. Looks like a big waste of money to me.

I use allot of gypsum on my lawn it breaks up hard pack clay soils which is what we have here. You maybe need to check with a nursery in your area and see what they would recommend. I also use organic fertilizers when I can find them, not only do I not like my dogs to be on chemicals they really do work better for me.

They condition the soil while they feed the grass not just feed the grass. If I have an area that the dogs really beat down I have a tool that takes plugs out of the lawn and then I throw the gypsum over it. You may not be able to do much about the trails that they make but maybe the rest could be tolerable for your DH. The grass wouldn't be as nice but it would be green.

I also put epsom salts in with my fertilizer the spread it. I do put allot of this stuff on my lawn but here it's the only way to have a lawn it's very poor soil where I'm at, I have to work at it. But my dogs just love the green grass.


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

Herzo said:


> I do put allot of this stuff on my lawn but here it's the only way to have a lawn it's very poor soil where I'm at, I have to work at it. But my dogs just love the green grass.


When we traveled all thru your part of the country, Rocky learned REALLY quickly that the only place he didn't step on cactus were areas that had lush thick grass! I never realized that cactus can be real tiny and low lying until then. After about a week of pulling thorns out of his paws, he finally just refused to step on dirt and we would have to search around for grass. I can see why your dogs love the grass!

Next time out west we are packing boots for the boy dogs.


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

Oh. Man. We have the same issue. And while I don't really care about the looks of a nice green lawn (it is pretty, don't get me wrong), I care more about the MESS a dirt patch creates. With 6 big/giant dogs grass really isn't an option in a "yard" which is why we are moving to Idaho on 6 acres. What we will do is make a rather large run (several acres) that they have as much access to as they want, they can tear it to shreds. We will also have a "yard" that is pretty much off limits unless we say so because while we like the look of grass, dogs definitely love lounging on it. 

In the house we are in now, we have your standard front and back yard. Last fall we tilled the back yard and spread seed out, a rocky mountain mix of grass as well as micro clover seed so we can rent it out when we move to Idaho (not a good time to sell). Micro clover helps to nitrify the (nitrogen fixation from the air) soil helping to prevent urine burn patches and also helps with erosion control. Through all of my research, if you have just ONE type of grass it wont do as well standing up to high traffic. You want a mixed array of plants to help stay strong and healthy. If you've ever spent time in Europe, their lawns are like little gardens its wonderful. Really short dense mixture of many different plants rather than just something like Kentucky bluegrass. 

The girls pretty much haven't stepped foot back there in the past six months to get things growing. But in the past few weeks we have let them out there for controlled time and I can see how much more they prefer it than the dirt patch out front (I will work on the front once Jon moves and takes three with him). 

Before: 









After (yesterday):









This was a few months ago:









Microclover:

Amazon.com: microclover

Good luck and I hope this helps!


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## RaisingWolves (Mar 19, 2011)

DaneMama,
My yard is your before picture. I'm embarrassed to post pics of my kids playing in the yard.:redface: We need to do something because I want to sell my house and buy one with a swimming pool for added exercise for my fur kids(and me). Summer is too hot to do anything but swim. Installing a pool in our current yard is not an option....plus, I want a smaller home.


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## DaneMama (Jun 27, 2008)

RaisingWolves said:


> DaneMama,
> My yard is your before picture. I'm embarrassed to post pics of my kids playing in the yard.:redface: We need to do something because I want to sell my house and buy one with a swimming pool for added exercise for my fur kids(and me). Summer is too hot to do anything but swim. Installing a pool in our current yard is not an option....plus, I want a smaller home.


Either spring (after the last frost) or late summer fall (better than spring) are the best times of year to lay seed or sod. So...either get started right now or wait until the end of summer.


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## wags (Jan 31, 2009)

Our back yard is fenced in, I have a walk way to the swing which has the stone going to it and I have a pool on the one side and a patio. The grass has some brown/yellow (doggy urine) spots of course and some bare patches. I just got a peony bush for the one bare spot and I put a couple more trees in! See that's what you do you fill in spots haha! You can't really make an issue about the bare spot or the doggy poop spots or the urine (OMG I have no grass but yellow hay there haha) spots. You just sort of fudge it up with growing things heehee! My hubby puts the grass seed and all and the dogs lay on it thinking oh a bed! See our back yard has been through kids, neighbors kids, adults, dogs and yes of course you want it descent, but again livable! I like a house where I walk in and feel comfortable ~homey like~ not OMG this house needs to be on the hoarders show or condemned~ but Livable like oh its ok not to take off your shoes and the back yard well same thing oh ok you have wood stacked for your fireplace, you have some lawn furniture with chips in it and oh a few bare spots in the lawn NO BIGGIE~you have kids, pets NICE! Yep, lawns with dogs, any animals, kids there going to get wear and tear! No biggie in the back yard! At least for us we had and still have the fun backyard!


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

It also depends on what area of the country you live in. For the first ten or 15 years, I had really good luck with Zoysia that I planted as little plugs. It held up well with kids and dogs (but i didn't have a digger then) but it turns completely brown in the winter. It's been about 25 years now and too many storms and hurricanes and the chickweed and weedy grass has finally taken over the zoysia.

But, I've been told it doesn't do well in the west.


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## Herzo (Feb 5, 2011)

I've never heard of that. Probably something to do with acidic verses alkaline. That's allot of what we have, especially where I,m at my soil is really bad. And yes we have allot of cactus, how do you think I get my puppy's not to run off, ha ha.

Danemoma I'll have to take a look at that. Your yard looks great. Does it hold up to allot of traffic?


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## rocky401 (Oct 2, 2013)

we use dog rocks to stop they pee stains, and they work! not sure how to stop them digging though, perhaps fence off an area of the yard that is just for them? But i guess it depends how large your garden is. Dog Rocks have been a huge help to use though, just need to re-plant all of the flowers they've dug up!


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## NutroGeoff (May 15, 2013)

Baxter has worn down his path in the grass as well. It is tough to keep it nice. Especially with multiple big dogs. I don't know that there is much that can be done to prevent that other than giving tem their own specific area.


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