What are everyone's tricks to keep dogs away from plants??

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Edited April 6, 2010 by lsdreamz

[Ace]

I believe you are referring to 'Poss Off' - which is used for a possum repellant. I dont know if it much good for dogs though, but it could be worth a shot. I believe it is made of a wood from some type of tree that possums dislike.

There are other commercial dog/cat repellants - I think one called 'Scat' or something.

As for a home-made remedy - I dont know if pyrethrum would be much good? Anyone tried it?

[El Barto]

citronella oil is a good dog repellent

[indigo264nm]

A smack on the nose any time it goes near the plants???

[Conan Troutman]

A smack on the nose any time it goes near the plants???

Coleus canina aka the piss off plant is supposed to repel most pets, tho I've got no experience with its use.

Diluted Citronella oil in a spray, spicy things like chilli, mustard, pepper ect..

[indigo264nm]

Love the valium gif C. troutman

One thing I will most definitely say if you wanna keep your dogs away from the garden beds.... DO NOT USE BLOOD & BONE.

After a few days since putting blood n bone underneath some sugarcane mulch on my Brug out the front I had a stray dog in the front yard digging around it, and my own dog sniffing around my plants out back.

[shruman]

"A smack on the nose any time it goes near the plants???"

Yeah train ur dog, I dont use a smack though but I do throw water on him or a verbal reprimand.

They soon learn.

I had a peg at the corner of one of my gardens to stop the hose from going over plants when I drag it round & they new if they went the wrong side of the peg they were in trouble.

Edited August 27, 2007 by shruman

[Vertmorpheus]

Theres a few tricks for that one... the best is training, as that stops your pup not only demo'ing your beds but anyone elses. As long as they have a visual line in the sand to abide by, most dogs will grow a brain eventually, but if you don't know precisely where your garden starts n stops, neither can they. Edging, raised beds, border plantings of aloe, lemongrass (*on the way CT*), other tougharsed things that grow happily on runoff.. help with ducks, snails, drunks as well. Blood n bone, true that. But if you are hell bent on using it, you can make a soil rich compost in a perforated drum and braek the blood n bone down that way first, but dnt be surprised if poochy eats thru the tub first.

those commercial sprays are usually based on mixing 9 kinds of bullshit smelly essential oil together, some work on some dogs, none work on all dogs. Especially dogs that live with hippies and get bombarded with rosemary and ti tree flea powder, etc..

Jackie French reckons if you can source chestnut husks and mulch with them, the thorns will keep any soft crittered things out.. might be a lil extreme, and incur the Wrath of the Other Half etc... though I use big canes of some thorny shrub lurking in the bush around here as edging while seedlings are popping, mainly to keep ferals out.. criss cross of string keeps ducks out too, once they crash into it the first time that is (not kind I know, but a duck should be eating in creeklines not eating in my tatsoi patch... though I do let them in now n then when they have little ones, just a softie i guess).

Maybe just buy a roll of that 20cm wide "gutter guard" sized chicken wire and make a wee fence around the place. If that sounds a bit much like effort, raised beds really do seem to help at least while you are around, dogs naturally tend to skulk along low ground when acting up and they feel stupid doing it a foot off the ground, at least mine does.

maybe use a bunch of cactus logs as garden edging, and score free pups off the ends to boot (unless your dog eats them). Mixing chilli thru soil rarely works for more than a day or so, and most damage is from dogs walking over beds IME rather than digging them up. Adding lime or ash to knock down some acidity seems to cut down on "ambient aroma" of nicely organic beds, certainly the "riper" a bed is the more it gets "investigated" by pets.

my pup is a terrorist but I remind myself he's just trying to help, and he is good at breaking thru the mulch layer on top of my sand deposit. Less amused when he decids the agaves around the front door are doggy toothbrushes, but by then you love em so its too late

failing all of that, store your piss for a couple days, let it go just slightly rank, load into a spraypack and do the perimeter of the garden in one continuous loop... your dog will be less impressed, but outside dogs seem to balk pretty reliably at the thought of a critter so big and well fed its piss smells like pure ammonia and its trail is 60 metres long. mammals arent stupid. Note... this seems easier to do when the missus is not around, and even the more broadminded of my mates doesn't want to hear the secret to good tomatos

A big roll of brown string and a few stakes and much walking around n around n around makes a passable barrier to easily deterred animals, if anything wants in it can of course, but playing with real fencing materials is no fun at all (fencing rates higher than answering the phone for overfed public servants on the List Of Jobs That Suck). Hack some weedy bamboo poles from somewhere and use those, old shadecloth, roll of hessian, just about anything can be used as a fence. Windbreaks can really boost yields in more exposed gardens too, and can save a lot of water. Can up fungal rates though (not always a bad thing though ;) )

My dog eats cereus cactus, lemongrass and chickpea seedlings, and coriander. So I plant more and yell less, I eat things fromm other people's plants, would be a bit hypocritical to say he can't do the same haha.

happy gardening,

VM

btw, I stopped using cane mulch once I developed the suspicion that the remnant biocides for fungus, bugs etc used on the sugarcane seemd to be killing off my earthworms etc... had heaps, used the mulch, lost em all, only just coming back now two years later (scary). Might be that I am closer to sugar areas than others, but yeah... it might just be cheap for a reason.

Edited August 27, 2007 by Vertmorpheus

[PhantomTurkey]

My solution was to fence off part of the garden thus eliminating any chance of damage. I suggest fencing.

[Hagakure]

i suggest fencing too.

my pup destroyed a caapi and may have ring barked my p. carth.

no suprises that the plants i fenced off are all doing fine. the position isnt as ideal though.

[dqd]

... failing all of that, store your piss for a couple days, let it go just slightly rank, load into a spraypack and do the perimeter of the garden in one continuous loop... your dog will be less impressed, but outside dogs seem to balk pretty reliably at the thought of a critter so big and well fed its piss smells like pure ammonia and its trail is 60 metres long. mammals arent stupid...

Yep works a treat, though I just filled a 2 litre bottle and ran the trail across the front yard. Dogs wouldn't go past the line... added bonus all grass on the line will come up real green and healthy

[Amulte]

i heard some years back that Tiger or Lion urine mixed with water would keep every/any animal away from your prised plants...

but it raises the question of how and who is going to obtain it for you...

[Bongchitis]

...a small piece of lead travelling very quickly.....well, it works for cats!

[NorthernComfort]

After VERY extensive training(well trying), several repellants, and even giving our dogs their very own little area to dig/eat grass and ruffage they STILL insisted on getting into the gardens.

Picked up a bunch of cheap wire fencing, about 2 feet tall, and ended up quardening off all the gardens.

Works great.

Sort of a pain to weed the beds(as the fences don't really come out of the ground and then back in all that easy). But, no dogs eating my plants or digging them up.

:D

[Vertmorpheus]

Could maybe make the fencing on a basis of tubes/poles for uprights that can slide on an off something like star pickets set well into the edges of the beds... then you can lift/slide off a section of fencing as needed to do the edgework. Or make fences as sliding gate like sections standing between pairs of closely set pickets or posts, so you can pull them out as if set on a rail to do edges.. probably bring half the weeds with it on the first pull if you weed as regularly as I do haha. Or make fencing by setting up an upside U shaped frame work (think the front of soccer or hockey goals) then run a roll of wire down it, using just a bit of heavy tie wire every few feet to keep it basically upright... not like you're keeping stock in, tension is less important... then when its time to weed you can just undo the tie wire, roll the wire back up vertically to one end of a section, bung it back on when you're finished.

I think this place needs to be made into a home n lifestyle TV show... but with more of an SBS 9:30 kind of feel than the others.Backyard Schiz? Changelings Rooms?

VM

Edited August 28, 2007 by Vertmorpheus

[flora]

After VERY extensive training(well trying), several repellants, and even giving our dogs their very own little area to dig/eat grass and ruffage they STILL insisted on getting into the gardens.

Picked up a bunch of cheap wire fencing, about 2 feet tall, and ended up quardening off all the gardens.

Works great.

Sort of a pain to weed the beds(as the fences don't really come out of the ground and then back in all that easy). But, no dogs eating my plants or digging them up.

:D

yeep, same, i have just put the foot down - a big mo'fo fence! sealed off the vegie patch

you can buy 'dog wire' which is more solid than chicken wire, needs less stacking.

PS piss dilute is the best fert and cheap too

[Monk]

A yellow lab I had was quite a digger. Everytime I'd plant something, I'd come home later to the new plants lined up neatly bare-root style on the back porch. He was so proud! I think he was considering it some sort of variation on the 'fetch' theme. Haha. Well, my dad recommended an old redneck remedy: Bury little mouse traps just under the top layer of soil around your plants. Scratch, scratch, SNAP! Funny shit and he was no worse for the wear. It did stop the behavior, though. Mind you don't use rat-traps though or you may be in for an uncomfortable vet visit It works great for cats crapping/scratching in sandy mixes also.