I am not a keen gardener and nor is my wife. We do like things neat though so we keep things very simple.
Our back garden consists of a large patio area with the rest simply lawn which I reluctantly but regularly maintain. The bottom end of the garden is a row of old trees shading my gimungous shed and I don't really want anything which takes any more effort than that so planting more stuff is not my preferred option.
However, the house next door has changed hands recently and they seem to have a lot of children who naturally enough play in their garden. Fair enough. ( except maybe for the sodding trampoline where they pop up grinning over our fence while I'm trying to enjoy the paper and a coffee )
No, I'm fine with all of that but my dog is driven to distraction by the kids next door. He now runs up and down our side of the fence constantly and has to be chastised for excessive barking. Even that, I feel I can probably train him out of to an extent but the immediate issue is that about a 3 feet wide strip of what should be grass to our side of the fence is now just mud.
I've tried sowing new seed to no avail because he simply kicks it up before it has had time to take.
Any simple / inexpensive suggestions as to what I could do next which don't involve shooting the dog?
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Astro turf?
Last edited by: Fullchat on Sat 27 Apr 13 at 10:40
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>> Astro turf?
>>
I overheard two athletes talking ............
First athlete "Which do you prefer, grass or AstroTurf?"
Second athlete "I don't know. I've never tried smoking AstroTurf."
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Cost option.......Flagstones
No cost option...Keep dog out of back garden
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>>Keep dog out of back garden
Trouble is, his kennel is out there. It's actually rather neatly part of the shed with his own little entrance and he lives out there during the day.
We both work so he's better off outside if he has to be on his own. He was fine until the Waltons moved in next door.
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Does he see them as intruders or is it him wanting to join in the fun?
Interested to see Zero's take on this from a dog trainer's pov.
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Move to Scotland. How about a nice place in the borders? Very quiet there :)
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>>Move to Scotland
If only I could...
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Grasscrete. www.grasscrete.com/images/popups/grasscrete4.jpg :)
Last edited by: NIL on Sat 27 Apr 13 at 11:20
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No, he's not aggressive at all. Loves kids in fact. Just wants to play. He's only young, just 2 years old but he's a terrier and a bit daft sometimes. The kids egg him on, can't blame them for that as most of them are only young too. They call/whistle to him or "bark" back at him and wind him up until he dashes back and forth.
I don't want to complain to the parents as the kids are only being kids but my garden is suffering and the dog now constantly trails muddy footprints into the house and we have to hose mud off his shaggy white coat daily.
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>> Does he see them as intruders or is it him wanting to join in the
>> fun?
>>
>> Interested to see Zero's take on this from a dog trainer's pov.
Toughest one in the box this. You can only really train dogs to do, or not do stuff when they are in your presence. Once you are not there, they have no guidance and will resort to natural* behaviour to them, which is sleeping, eating, guarding and prey drive. The kids next door trigger two of those, the guarding and prey drive. (plus one more @)
* You can alter natural behaviour, by making things a habit (you train dogs not to sleep on beds or sofas for example when you are not there) but the stimulus of the kids is a killer to this.
The problem is the dog is bored. There is no-one there, @the dog is a pack animal, and there is an interesting and exciting pack next door.
You'll not stop the dog running up and down under those circumstances. You can train it to not run up and down that spot, but it will just choose another.
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>>We both work so he's better off outside if he has to be on his own
And therein lies the problem, poor thing.
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>> >>We both work so he's better off outside if he has to be on his
>> own
>>
>> And therein lies the problem, poor thing.
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My neighbours do this. Dog barks all day long. Drives me absolutely nuts when I'm trying to sleep during the day. Why can't the dog be inside during the day if you let him out for a wazz / crap in the morning?
Edit: Thought crosses my mind that you could, in fact, be my neighbour!
Last edited by: Fursty Ferret on Sat 27 Apr 13 at 11:30
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>> >> >>We both work so he's better off outside if he has to be on
>> his
>> >> own
>> >>
>> >> And therein lies the problem, poor thing.
>> >>
>>
>> My neighbours do this. Dog barks all day long. Drives me absolutely nuts when I'm
>> trying to sleep during the day. Why can't the dog be inside during the day
>> if you let him out for a wazz / crap in the morning?
>>
>> Edit: Thought crosses my mind that you could, in fact, be my neighbour!
I doubt it would make much difference, my brother lives next door to someone who works and has a dog inside. Says it barks all day long.
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>> My neighbours do this. Dog barks all day long. Drives me absolutely nuts when I'm
>> trying to sleep during the day. Why can't the dog be inside during the day
That might be a good idea if you lived in a detached house, but a neighbour leaving a dog inside all day long could be extremely bad news if you are working nights and living in the semi next door.
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>>My neighbours do this. Dog barks all day long. Drives me absolutely nuts when I'm trying to sleep during the day. Why can't the dog be inside during the day if you let him out for a wazz / crap in the morning?
You could try a complaint to the council about that.
www.ehow.com/how_4449380_file-complaint-barking-dog.html
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Apparently anti-barking dog collars work.
Next door but one, lives a Great Dane and its co-habitator, a Chihuahua. The horrid little one yaps mightily which sets off the Great Dane, which dischuffs Alfie, a normally placid Border Collie who lives next door to us, thus getting him to bark too.
The Dane's owners leave him and his nasty companion out all day in the garden: Alfie & his sister, Fly (the quiet one of the pair), live in a huge kennel with access to our neighbour's garage, during the day, so the cacophony has to be heard to be believed. Other dogs in the neighbourhood join in too.
Now you know why I am anti- dog! We had a similar problem with two Alsations on a roof opposite and level with, our first Spanish flat, but they were there 24hrs a day & 365 days a year.
Complaints to Mr. Great Dane have resulted in an anti-bark collar being applied to the beast. It appears to have some effect.
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>> Apparently anti-barking dog collars work.
>>
>>
Not always.
Some dogs carry on barking regardless, and if the dog is left alone for any length of time they'll often manage to paw the thing off.
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Make a gravel path. Take up the turf, and dig down 3 inches or so and ram the soil solid. Make some sort of edging for the path, treated timber will do Put down some landscaping material , add gravel, - pea shingle is good and rake. Job done.
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For the front sides of my kennels where the dogs constantly 'move', I laid down the plastic clip together floor tiles, like the ones around swimming pools etc. They've got lots of holes/pattern in them, so after a while the grass grows back through. The only problem when they are fresh is if the dogs nails are long, they can catch in the holes. I sprinkled some top soil on them, and that solved that problem.
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To be fair, he's only on his own for a maximum of 6.5 hours on only three days a week. My wife only works part time. However, I had rather less scientifically reached the same conclusion as Zero. There isn't anything much I can do about his behaviour so it's going to be more about the re-surfacing of that area. The gravel idea may be best as its not a level area and a gravel "path" would follow the contours of the land.
Give him something to dig up if nothing else !
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The fake turf idea mentioned by Fullchat is worth looking into, I had to cover up a larger area of garden where the septic tank was - prior to marketing sed property.
I got a number of free samples from various companies so as to get an exact match to my poor excuse for a lawn.
The result was far better than I could ever have imagined, not cheap though.
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Had this.
I got two moveable plant pots and put them on the runway. At times it reduced the dogs' speed at others made them run 4ft further into the garden.
I periodically moved the pots.
I couldn't stop the behaviour, but the disruption to the path avoided any need to resurface.
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Aha ! A cheap and cunning plan at last !
Gonna do that right now...
Thanks
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>> The fake turf idea mentioned by Fullchat is worth looking into,
That might be a better solution, as much of the gravel will end up on the lawn.
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Right, I've placed plant pots at 4' intervals on the worn area, staggered in a sort of zig-zag. I'll move them about a bit a couple of times a week. Let's see...
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You're keen.
I put them about every 10' and moved them each time I mowed the lawn.
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It's the challenge. Passes for excitement in these parts y'know...
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How's it working out?
Dogs on a different track or now proficient at slalom?
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He has now developed a ski racer style and glances off the pots knocking them over with his shoulder as he weaves through. Short of hiring marshalls I'm not sure now what to do.
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You could try laying out branches. I don't mean single sticks, but the kind of branches with lots of sticky out bits, like just cut from a tree or bush. Well, *I* know what I mean. Thorn bushes provide ideal branches.
He won't run through them, and putting them out periodically will allow the grass to recover. Equally they don't particularly stand out and appear unsightly.
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Is this sort of stuff any good?
www.boddingtons-ltd.com/acatalog/GrassProtecta-SR-Grass-Reinforcement-Mesh.html?gclid=CPaauJiw67YCFQjKtAodjEMAuA
£80 ish for 1 meter wide by 10 m long. (Bit more expensive than grass seed!!)
Google "grass protection mesh"
First link I came up with so may be many more available.
Course instead of shooting the dog you could always shoot the neigh.... maybe not!
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Or even, I suppose, a length of chicken wire (cheap) laid an inch below surface, soil then spread on top with grass seed?? Would stabilise grass roots, but would it harm dogs paws before established if he continued running there?
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>>
>> Any simple / inexpensive suggestions as to what I could do next which don't involve
>> shooting the dog?
>>
Shoot the children.
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Thanks all ! Going to see if the plant pot chicane system works first.
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You could also do a little research and find out if there is a local retired person who would like a companion three days a week. This worked very well for a working friend of ours and his canine - the elderly lady did not want to have a full time dog, but missed having one around. Even more useful when on holiday as the dog had a home-from-home to stay in.
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Find one that makes nice cakes as well.
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Nicole's dog appears to be struggling with the kettle, never mind making cakes:
tinyurl.com/ckrckg4
(link to Telegraph)
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Grassed off - Fullchat
