10 Tips To Prevent Your Dog From Giving Your Garden Trouble


Your plants, whether indoors or out, may have a special appeal to your dog. Your dog may enjoy digging up your geraniums or depositing wastes on your watermelons. Or, he may find it fun to dig the dirt from your houseplants and then deposit it on the floor for later use. To keep your dog from starting his own landscaping business in your yard, try some of these tips for turning your four-legged dirt devil into lawn lover:

1. Check at farm or garden stores for chemical products developed to repel animals from choosing your garden as a favorite place to dig or deposit wastes. Such products come in granular forms that last up to three months outside. The odor is designed to stop animals from leaving their droppings around your home.

2. Sprinkle alum powder around bushes or objects in your garden your dog likes to dig up.

3. To keep dogs from digging in your outdoor garden, sprinkle the garden with moth crystals. If you have kids, cover the moth crystals with dirt.

4. If your dog likes to dig in a certain spot, try placing upside-down mousetraps that will startle him if he disturbs them.

5. If your gardens are of the container variety or consist entirely of indoor plants, prevent your dog from digging in the pots by inserting pine or other evergreen cones in the dirt. Or, place
aluminum foil over the pot.

6. Bury a cotton ball dipped in oil of cloves just below the surface of the soil in your flowerpots. Be sure it is just barely covered the soil.

7. If you use a chemical lawn treatment, insecticide, or fertilizer, make sure your dog stays off the lawn for the specified amount time (usually 24 hours), depending on the product you use.

8. If you've used a lawn flea treatment, keep your dog off the lawn until it is safe. Read the product label directions to determine how long your dog should keep off the grass.

9. The best way to keep a dog from digging in your garden and flower beds is to surround the gardens and beds with fencing. For example, use chicken wire that is high enough to prevent them from jumping over and inserted about I foot (30 cm) under the ground to prevent them from digging under them.

10. As a last resort, and if surrounding your garden with a real fence is impossible, try an invisible fencing system that creates a barrier that your dog won't jump over or dig under. The invisible fencing system is customized to your dog, home, and property