Any Plants That Discourage Dogs From Hanging Around?

[qualtrough]

I want to plant a small garden in our yard and am worried that our two dogs will trample it and use it for, well, you know what. Are there any plants that are known to keep dogs at bay, and if so what are their Thai names?

[londonthai]

you can plant marigolds around.

try as well moth balls, garlic, chilli, vinegar, ground black pepper on the borders

otherwise might try a motion-activated sprinkler

[qualtrough]

Thanks London Thai!

[cdnvic]

Pepper has always worked for me (in the dry season of course). The downside is that if you use sprinklers or it rains, the effectiveness is literally washed away.

[Mobi]

I started a thread some time back asking for help in stopping my golden - who was then a puppy- from digging up and sometimes eating my plants and bushes.

I had a great multitude of answers, but to be honest I didn't really try any of them to any great extent, and now she has grown up, she has more less stopped this habit.

The main advice was to train her not to do it, but of course you have to catch her doing it for any training to work, and as she always dug them up when we were sleeping, it wasn't really possible. Many's the time I would come down in the morning and find an array of plants and bushes all dug up and neatly arranged on my terrace for inspection.

The one bit of advice that I did take on board - to some extent - was to fence off the flower beds so that the dog can't get to them. Well I never quite did that but I did put large peices of cardboard round newly planted beds for a few nights, until they had settled in and matured - as my dog invariably went after the newly planted stuff, not old plants.

So you could try that - fence off temporarily, especially when you're not around,until the dogs have got used to the new additions to their yard.

There was one suggestion to spray the plants with WD40 which seemed to work, but I had too many to do it on a regular basis.

Good luck

Edited October 7, 2007 by Mobi

[londonthai]

for the dog diggers the solution is a harsh discipline and leash - they are kind of neurothics, getting more and more wild and unsuitable for the further training before they stop digging.

Instead of fensing the small area for plants I would rather fence a shaded area for the dog - and walk the dog in the park/open space once or twice a day.

[nomorcavmor]

I sort of understand, but if you don't want your dogs to pee in the house, and you have a limited yard space, and then you limit it more by planting a garden, what can you really expect???

You can train them if you are there when they do what they want to do, but to be realistic, will it really ruin everything? Can't you just wash it? Or should you just change your expectations if you want to be happy and also have happy pets?

Basically I would think it depends on if you have large amounts of land or not and if you have resonable expectations and how good of a dog trainer you are. Dogs are a pleasure to have and are usually helpful to your life and we have to give up things to have them so MAYBE in your case you cannot have a garden also, but maybe you can. Maybe you have to hire a professional dog trainer to have both, we have one on this website, Nienke, althogth, maybe she cannot do what you need if she doesn't live with you.

[nomorcavmor]

I want to stress again that we all give up money to feed our dogs, some more or less, and for vet bills, for toys, for beds, for care when we travel, for grooming, for flea and tick care, etc. Usually pets are not cheap but it depends on how we take care of them, depends on the breed, depends on the individual, and depends on our means to take care of them. One cost may be giving up having a garden or could be the cost of water for spraying off your cement of pee everyday which I do for example. I have had dog pee completely kill my grass and plants in my yard, and do damage that affected the selling price of my houses. I didn't care too much because I loved my dogs and knew this was part of the cost.

I haven't tried to have a food garden. But if you cannot have one I would just say that maybe this is something that doesn't go hand in hand. But, if you gave up your dog(s) to have a garden, maybe you would have someone break into your house and that cost would be more than 10 years of savings of having a garden, maybe they would kill someone in your household and you can't even put a value on that. Just trying to give you something else to thing about when you are pissed off at your dog for peeing on your carrots.

[Nienke]

Last year I've been planting several shrubs, herbs and trees in my garden, most of them medicinal.

Although, my dogs are adults already, they do pee ... and a lot. And sure enough the males loves to pee on top of the seedlings. To protect the plants we've put bamboo fences around. Wasn't the most beautiful sight, but now after a year, most have grown up beautiful big enough so that I could take away the bamboo.

As was suggested on Mobi's thread, you can put a plastic net just under the soil surface. The plants will be able to grow through, but it will make it uncomfortable for the dogs to dig. Chilli, pepper etc may work, but I've never tried it out in combination with plants. I did once try to train my dogs not to eat from the ground. 'A stranger' made minced meat balls and put chilli in it (the small super spicy ones). First attempt didn't work. We increased the amount of chilli. More attempts ... didn't work. We tried until the balls consisted of almost 90% chilli, and still those bl***dy dogs said YUMMI!

Needles to say, we gave up.

If one would like to train the dogs to stop digging, it will mean you have to supervise them the whole time when they are in the garden, because corrections will only work when the intention to dig is there or when the dog is doing it. If supervision is not possible at times, then the dogs should be convined in the house, in the cage, on a lead or in any other way, but kept away from the garden.

Once the digging has been done correction will not work, as the dog's memory is too short to be able to make the association between its own action and the correction. What can happen, though, is that the dog can make another association, for example, your (angry) presence and plants. For the dog that will mean: you-plants-danger, no you-plants-safe-free to continue digging.

As for the OP's question about what kind of plants, can't really answer that question. Maybe plants with thorns, but then still, when they are small, it probably won't work.

Nienke