Since we acquired a female puppy in early May our little lawn has become a complete wreck, mostly bare earth with just a few pathetic strands of grass here and there. They say you should teach the puppy to pee and poop in just one area but as our garden is so small, and is nearly all grass - or was! - that would impossible.
I tried the Dog Rocks, which you put in the drinking water, and they made absolutely no difference at all. I tried watering where she had peed but this meant I had to watch her like a hawk and keep rushing out with the watering can in my hand - hopelessly impractical. Next I decided to hose down the whole lawn morning and evening, in the hope of diluting the urine, but that didn't work either and the ground became much too wet.
Last weekend I was visiting a friend who also has a female dog and a tiny garden but to my amazement her lawn was unmarked by any unsightly patches. She told me she puts a teaspoonful of tomato ketchup in her dog's food and this apparently does the trick.
My friend also said she'd heard tomato juice was best of all but because she doesn't like it herself, and didn't want to throw the surplus away, she opted for ketchup.
Does anyone know if using either tomato juice or ketchup is OK for the dog's health? And if using the ketchup, should it be the low salt, low sugar version?
Julia Lewis
I use Passata (seived tomatoes), as I've found it is more readily available than tomato juice. It doesn't keep long once opened, so I freeze it in ice-cube trays. At first, I waited for the cubes to defost before feeding to my dogs - but then discovered they enjoy crunching on the frozen tomato! Hope this helps.
ReplyDeleteHi Claire
ReplyDeletethanks so much for that suggestion! I am going to try passata. I love the idea of freezing it in ice cubes. Julia
Hi Julia, something I've been using for one of my dogs is a herb from CSJ Herbs (www.csjk9.com) called Eezy Peezy. Its all natural and you simply sprinkle it on the dinner. Very reasonably priced too. It does work!! Worth trying if the tomato juice does not work. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteHi Emma,
ReplyDeleteA belated thank you for your suggestion. I've been studying the grass and am afraid to say it is still mostly bare earth, despite my dog having had lashings of tomato passata added to her dinner. I'll give it a bit longer then try the Eezy Peezy herbs.
If that fails, maybe the answer is to brick over our little garden.
Julia
If your 'lawn' is mostly bare earth, you will need to re-seed or turf it, even if tomato or Eezy Peezy DOES work. The ground will need to be worked over to break up compacted soil, and possibly organic matter added, before you can cultivate a successful lawn. The bare spots in my garden are getting smaller, but it has taken all summer just to see a significant difference. I think it will take at least another summer for them to disapear completely!
ReplyDeleteIt may be that your lawn is too small to be practical ie the wear from constant use by your dog might stop grass from ever being successful. Gravel is better than a solid surface such as brick, as dogs don't get splashed so much when they pee!
HI Claire
ReplyDeleteI have been re-seeding it as I go and also raking it with one of those spikey rakes. There is a bit of growth, I can report, but still large bare patches. However, I'm giving it longer and the good thing is, my dog doesn't seem to mind tomato in her dinner.
It probably is the size of our lawn that's the problem. I wouldn't want gravel because that's what we had before! Last autumn my partner and I spent ages raking up all the gravel and carting it away. That was a mammoth task because over the years I had kept adding new stones to freshen it up.
What we didn't like about the gravel was that when you picked up the poo, you also picked up some gravel, and as we were using kichen roll to do this and putting it straight down the downstairs loo, my partner was endlessly clearing out stones from the loo. Also little stones would get stuck on the soles of our shoes and then dent our wooden floor.
We put down turf last autumn and it looked absolutely lovely for about 3 months - until we got our puppy.
Our previous dog, a male, had no effect on it.
I might also try that remedy suggested here, which was some brick-like object that you place in the area where you want your dog to toilet and it attracts the dog to do it there. I shall have to spool back through the earlier posts.
Julia