How to maintain a nice yard, despite your dog's best attempt to destroy it.

I have had up to four at time dogs at a time and almost an acre of backyard. My wife and I like a nice yard, but not necessarily a manicured lawn. The biggest plus of a nice thick lush lawn is a lot less mud and dirt comes in on the 16 paws. Our dogs have open access to the yard through a dog door all year around. People stop over and are amazed that the backyard is a thick lush green carpet of grass.  No dirt spots from the dogs digging and there are no discernible paths in the yard from 16 doggie paws walking their daily routes. 

Know thy dog 

Dogs are territorial by nature and creatures of habit. Each and everyday my four dogs walk the exact same route around the yard, stopping to pee on everything from a fence post to an old basketball .  If an animal has gone through the yard during the night before, the dogs feel the need track the varmints steps through the yard, often several times. Combine this with the occasional stray that runs the fence with them, the grass eventually gets worn down. It then dies and eventually turns into mud the dog tracks into your home. This progress goes on year around, but as a dog and home owner, you need to get prepared to either repair these spots or prevent them. I prefer to prevent these spots and paths from starting in the first place.

As Joe Dirt once said, “Life’s a garden, dig it.” Dogs dig and they love to dig.  Terriers and other ratters love to dig even more. It’s fun, and the grubs, moles and other yard edibles are fun to eat.  No matter how much you work at it, you will always have a few digging spots in your yard. Digging can also  be a sign of boredom, anxiety and redirected anxiety from objects or animals they are unable to get to due to the fence. This article is focused on normal wear and tear, but always be concerned if your dog is extremely destructive in your yard. If could be a sign of other behavior issues.


I like the capsicum or black pepper based dog deterrents on the market right now and you can get them at Home Depot or Lowes.  If you have mulch areas or others you think that the dog will like. Be proactive and mix cayenne pepper and the pet deterrents into the mulch as you put it down or in the fresh soil. If you use the cayenne pepper you will have to reapply after rain, but try to keep the areas jazzed up for 30 days to break the digging pattern. For dog dig holes, I found burying poop in their holes stopped most of the digging. Some of my friends create digging areas with sand for their dogs or even wood piles for the dog to tear into. It can be away to keep your yard nice and tire your dog out!

Pee and Poo Spots

You can teach your dog to go where you want them. If it is a new home try to lead the dog to the same spot to poop everyday for 2-3 weeks and reward him. If you are in an established yard keep 1-2 poops in the spot you want Fido to go in everyday and reward him for going there. You might even want to take him back out on lead for a few weeks to get him going in the spot you want. My four dogs tend to go in the same general spots everyday. Since we have four we pick it up every day, but we do not have to wander the whole yard looking for poops.  Once the dog designated area gets full of poops, they will move to a new spot. My advice, pick it up every 1-2 days or everyday if you have more than two dogs and you want the dogs to acclimate to the same area. If you don't want to search for snow-poos, consider clearing a spot in the backyard of snow all the way to the grass.  Preferably, it would be in the same spot they use in the nice weather, but we usually clear a spot closer to the house in the winter. The dogs mostly go in that spot and decreases the snow-poo search and rescue.  Come spring, the dogs easily go back to their area in the far reaches of the yard. 

Pee Poles

I do not have a pee pole in my yard, but the fence posts and the old basketball seem to suffice and as a result, I no burn spots from pee in the yard. Actually, now with the newest addition of Jade, I do have some pee spots in the middle of summer.  If I had a sprinkler system  I would water the spots down after Jade goes to dilute the pee. I'm not quite that concerned about the yard. Later on in the article I talk about over seeding. A pee pole could be an old fire hydrant or simply a 4X4 post sunk in the ground with about 2 feet showing. Male dogs will naturally go over to it and pee on it. Surround the base with rock, mulch or other item and you can protect much of your yard from the dog pee. If the dog won’t use it dab a small paper towel on the grass the next time he pees and wipe that on the pole or post.  Or here's something I found out completely by accident. If you pee in the yard, your dogs will mark it just like canine pee.  Normally, any new item in the yard gets marked immediately so it should not be a problem. Female dogs may pee next to the pull instead of hiking a leg, but most females also mark their territory. They do make Pee Poles scented to promote a dog to go on it or near it. 

Preventing Paths

Each year I over seed in the fall and pay special attention to the dog paths, nap spots and the occasional hole. Prior to over seeding I also aerate the dog paths around the yard a couple times of year. Once the paths get too compacted the seed will have a difficult time growing. 


I invest in a 50 lb. bag of annual rye grass every year. This is a fast growing seed that is primarily in patch grass. I find the cheapest bag I can and in the spring I over seed any resemblance of trail in the yard and nap spots. This helps to give the perennial grass to get hold and in the summer the rye grass dies off.   I have two dogs who will kill the grass in specific sunny spots due to sleeping on the grass for several hours a day in the summer. I call these nap spots.  If I have some dirt spots I used cover the rye grass with straw. The straw brings in a ton of weeds and after 11 years I finally got a bit smarter.  I use Cyprus mulch now instead of straw. It's a bit more expensive, but this winter we used it to cover the paths that occur in Missouri because of the constant freeze and thaw in this area.  This winter we used about 10 bags of mulch and the yard looked weird. Come spring we had grass growing thicker in spots than we ever had, and despite the thick chunks of woody mulch the grass grew great!  So, mulch is now my suggested mud covering going forward.

Mowing 

How you mow your yard can determine the degree of dog paths you have in the yard. I start with a real low cut the first two spring mows and then gradually raise it to the highest setting. The tall grass is better in preventing weeds and also establishes a deeper root system. My wife used to like a low cut yard, but we were constantly fighting dog paths and mud spots. We now have a tall yard and hardly any paths in the yard. It does make finding the daily poops in the yard more difficult.    

Weeds and Fertilizing with dogs

If you want to use organic fertilizers and weed blocks you are welcome to, but I  found out that my dogs are attracted to the corn gluten based weed block and will graze on it if I put it on the yard. Corn gluten in addition to being an organic week block is also used in low quality dog food as filler for protein.  On the yard my dogs will be living on I usually use ½ the normal amount suggested by the weed and fertilizer companies. Scott’s is supposed to be one of the more pet friendly yard care product on the market and has less toxicity. However, I’ve used a variety of weed and bug killers over the years and my dogs have consistently lived into their senior years. I start the spring out with a general granular pre-emergent over the whole yard to stop crabgrass (just in the sunny spots) and other weeds. Then as weeds appear I use a liquid post emergent spray and spot spray the weeds.   I don’t try real hard to stop the clover in my yard, it’s pee resistant and will last in times of low rain. Smells nice too!

Nothing too earth shattering about keeping a nice yard with dogs. Most yards destroyed by the dogs are due to bored dogs or those who constantly fence run with another dog. Keep the grass mowed high and work to avoid soil compaction and excessive muddy spots.  The mulch worked great this year, but also consider rocking certain areas with a 1- 2 inch stone (see pic above). We did this due to low wet areas and for a little less maintenance. This is a picture of my little man Tazz shortly before his passing in July 2010 on a nice comfortable green lawn. One of his favorite past times was relaxing in a nice lush green yard. That's another plus, all your dog pics look better with bright green grass!

Tazz 1996-2010