# Ideas for a very muddy backyard.....



## kaykay (Apr 9, 2007)

My neighbors have two very nice dogs..... they also have a very muddy backyard. It has come down to the fact that they do not have a single blade of grass . Can anyone suggest ideas of what my neighbors can do to make it a cleaner environment? It cannot cost a lot of money..... They have a female who kills grass with her urine and a male who is on a very long chain which then pulls out the dead grass. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!


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## triaxle32590 (Feb 19, 2008)

kaykay said:


> My neighbors have two very nice dogs..... they also have a very muddy backyard. It has come down to the fact that they do not have a single blade of grass . Can anyone suggest ideas of what my neighbors can do to make it a cleaner environment? It cannot cost a lot of money..... They have a female who kills grass with her urine and a male who is on a very long chain which then pulls out the dead grass. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!


The only thing that will help, with out cost is to keep the dogs off the lawn ...Or confine the dogs to a smaller area of it and reseed it...I think Kentucky Blue grass is durable....


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## Durbkat (Jun 26, 2007)

As stated, keep the dog confined to one area. Then I'd call a landscaper and ask them what kind of grass is durable then reseed the lawn.


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## Renoman (Mar 20, 2007)

Straw makes a very good ground cover and is very inexpensive. It would need to be replaced occassionally, but a bale of straw is roughly $3.00. Wood chips might be something to consider as well. 

If it were me, I'd put up a huge outside kennel and use either concrete or pea stone as a flooring. Then the rest of the yard could be re-seeded.


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## TooneyDogs (Aug 6, 2007)

My backyard is about 1/4 acre and is covered with wood chips...free from the city. I just add an inch or two each year.


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## Quincy (Feb 25, 2007)

I'll add a bit to the thread. I don't know how much something like this costs but it's an option, see via this link:-
http://www.thepetloo.com/us/loo_components.html

The following information maybe of some help, and from this link:-
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/PLANTANSWERS/turf/dog_lawn_problems.html

Of the four grasses tested, Festuca sp. var. Kentucky 31 (fescue) and Lolium perrene (perennial ryegrass) were the most resistant to urine effects. In fact, the urine routinely produced a fertilizer effect on these grasses at diluted concentrations. Poa pratensis (Kentucky bluegrass) and Cynodon sp. var. Fairway (bermudagrass) were very sensitive to any urine concentration and severe burns resulted, persisting greater than 30 days after initial exposure to even four ounces of diluted urine. Even on the most urine resistant grass tested (fescue) urine concentration was a bigger problem than urine volume. Concentrated urine with volumes as little as 30cc (one ounce) caused lawn burn even on fescue grasses.
.


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## BullieCrazy (Feb 11, 2008)

The dog kennel and reseeding idea sounds like a great long term solution. 

The straw/hay can be a problem for you, unless your neighbors are very diligent in raking up and changing the straw during the warmer sunny months of the year. I once had a neighbor when I lived in town that had a yard area inbetween our houses and built a fence and put their 2 large dogs in it for about 12 or more hours out of the day, it turned to mud and they added bales of hay, but did not bother to muck it out but two or three times during the spring/summer season. The dirt dried out and we had our deck and outdoor furniture covered in dusty/dirt and you know what residue, the odor was horrific, we could not sit outside on warm days nor ventilate (open windows) our house with the odor and dust that would come up in the warm breeze in that warmer weather. And these were real clean freaky people with anything else around their home. (That is why their dogs spent so much time outside I think, to keep the house from getting dirty) Not a good situation to live next to!


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## kaykay (Apr 9, 2007)

Thanks, everybody for your suggestions. The yard becomes rather ugly and stinky but the dogs are so very nice. I am hoping for suggestions because as some of you have written it can become a very hard situation for us as neighbors dealing with the smell, sight and the dust (with who knows what in it) floating into our house through open windows when it gets warm. Our side walk is next to the fence that divides our back yards and we sometimes have doggie do do on by the dogs running and kicking it into our yard. Our Golden is trained to "potty" only in one part of our yard. Again, thank you for your suggestions.


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## Aussiefan (Jan 21, 2007)

Your neighbors can have a nice yard with healthy turf, but it won't be overly cheap. Would be worth it though. Anyway i have 4 dogs, so my yards took a beating over the winter...like every winter. It was doing fine until we had a week of freezing weather with no snow cover. If any weight is put on frosty or frozen turf...its instant death for the grass. (Any golfers out there know the frustration of "Frost Delays" at your course in the colder months but its a necessary evil) Anyway, i have a 2yr degree in turf managment and 10yrs golf course managment experience so i get to put my skills to work in my own yard...AGAIN, argh LOL!
Anyway what i do is aerify my lawns, rake up the plugs, topdress with sand, overseed, and apply a starter fertilizer. Yes i need a re-grow in period with limited use, so the dogs will be kept in the front yard while the back is getting back to shape, then i will rotate and do the other yard when the other is 100%. Your neighbors can section off part of their yard and do the same thing for grow in. Since they have bare dirt, and if their yard isn't too big, i would re-grade, remove rocks, roll, lay sod, re-roll, apply starter fertilizer and let it take hold for 3 weeks or so. Then do the same with the next section. If they don't want to spend the money on sod, they can do the same thing, but apply seed. Only problem is the grow in period is longer. If its a larger yard, and they are on a budget, i would suggest doing half the yard this year, and applying straw on the other half to keep dust down for the summer, then do that side next year.

For female dogs, training them to go in one area is the best way to control the yellow areas. One dedicated yellow area around an edge of a lawn isn't bad, otherwise there isn't a whole lot of options for that one. Female pee will kill a yard, male pee will deepen the color of your turf because of the nitrogen content. Human males as well...we would sometimes have smartass drunk guys out golfing and decide to pee on the green and spell their name. Well we cut our greens at .128 of an inch so any nitrogen concentrations will definatily show up on grass cut that short so we would have nice dark green names of morons on the putting green.


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## poodleholic (Mar 15, 2007)

I have two big dogs (and frequently foster, so have up to 5 dogs), but my back yard grass, plants and flowers look great. Especially since I put rock in once specific area as the designated potty area for them! I like the rock because it's easy to sanitize with disinfectant.

I didn't have rock for 4 of the 6 years I've had the dogs, but, even then it still looked nice, without any dead areas - and one of my two is a female. All I had to do was spray the pee area with the hose a couple of times a week to keep the urine from killing the grass. Are these dogs left outside all the time? Does your neighbor ever clean up the poop? Their yard shouldn't smell bad just because they've got dogs, unless they let it build up and do nothing about it. Then again, it may have something to do with the food the dogs are given. I've seen gross, stinky, mucousy poops from other dogs when out on walks with mine that are huge in comparison (to my dogs'), even coming from little dogs! So, that may play a part in the scenerio.


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## shewolf4 (Feb 24, 2008)

I am a avid gardener along with all the animals and kids. What I found is that rock is a mess when you like to mow or weed eat- its also hard labor and can get expensive. Straw is what allot of people use, but it will break down too fast and start to stink- gross, absolutely gross. My dogs love laying in mulch- prefered cedarmulch - it also repels bugs. I even put it in their doghouses - they shred blankets and hate straw also, so they really never used their houses until I put mulch in them. I put mulch under, in and around the doghouses- thick. It makes clean- up really easy, its warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Its easy to spread and cheap to replenish. And in the spring I get all the mulch out of the houses, pressurewash the houses and these spoiled critters will not go in, but look at me until I put more mulch in "their " houses - then they will go back in. I offered that advice on another board- horses- and had great feedback- just put it in thick. Cedarmulch also smells clean. There are really no grasses that hold up to a dog area and it the situation is as you say, it would be a waste of money to try again. I have also landscaped yards before that the owners didnt want the hassle with grass and it was too shady, so there are ways to have a nice yard without grass. I will plant each year a patch of oats for my dogs and cats to eat- they love it and it gives them great nutrients. To prevent them from diggin , I put cattle panels on the ground, then put mulch or soil over it- doesnt take much, That way I can still mow, weed eat or walk on it, but they cant dig half way to china 
I also secured out chickenpen that way- works great. That way everyone is pretty happy around here. 
I am planning to put in a portico in the next few weeks that will give more shade in a area the dogs like and mulch all under and around it- thickly. Very clean look with roses climbing all over. Just use a grass-rake to put it into place it they try to dig


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## Lili (Feb 3, 2008)

*Dog urine and dead grass...*



Quincy said:


> The following information maybe of some help, and from this link:-
> http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/PLANTANSWERS/turf/dog_lawn_problems.html
> 
> .


Wonderful link!!! Thanks so much for posting this info! I'll shortly start "trying" to train my dog to potty on a gravelled area in my backyard, to avoid the numerous yellow spots my dog's urine has caused in the short month I've had her! I have yellow circles all over my yard. And when I say yellow, I mean YELLOW! The grass is dead!  I may also try a few tricks the article mentioned such as watering her dry food to help dilute the urine a bit, and excessively water the grass right after I see her go pee - if I manage to catch her in the act that is! 

Thanks again! 

Lili


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## EXBCMC (Jul 7, 2007)

*Re: Dog urine and dead grass...*

My daughter and son-in-law just put in about 350 sq ft of artificial turf. He did about half of the labor and it still cost them $3k. But, in Calif, water is rising in cost and their yard is now pristine, not a plowed mess from two young labs. Some artificial turf have small, black beads for cushioning. Football players etc hate this, it gets in their eyes. My daughter is a soccer coach at our HS and their football field has the art turf, so she is use to the beads. She opted to go without for her yard. It really looks nice.


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