Please help!

Hi everyone
I wondered if anyone could give me a little advice. My garden, quite frankly, is a mess. I have two dogs and their wee has just about killed off all the grass that i did have. The drainage through the grass is also rubbish so whilst the weather is like it is there is a lot of surface water - mixed with no grass = a giant mud pie!

The dogs are a mess and the dining room floor is covered in muddy paw prints all the time.

We can't afford to fully pave the garden, loose stones and wood chip also aren't a good idea for hygiene purposes.

So, i suppose the advice i'm looking for is

1. how to improve drainage?
2. any ideas on what to put down to stop it being so sludgy?
3. Any pet owners out there also with top tips on how to keep muddy paws at bay?

The garden is smallish so no room to put a pet run in unfortunately.

Any help really would be much appreciated.

Thank you all very much 0)

 

I think if you don't want the dogs / bitches to pee on the grass then you have to train them to pee somewhere else and provide them with a place to go.
Dogs / bitches can be trained to pee in a sandpit if you provide one for them.
Cats can also be trained to use an outdoor litter area and not the neighbours garden.

The dogs can be trained to wait at the door until you have cleaned their paws with an old towel or something.. I'm not havering, I've seen it all done.

 

I guess that If you read the topic about "moss in your lawn" (in this forum) you can get helpfull advices as far as draining the water from the ground is concern.
By spiking, raking, scarifying, forking, areating your "neglected" lawn you must do all those helpfull actions to cope with your problem: draining the amount of water that makes your lawn looking like a mud.
After that, you could seed and then add an amount of mould both to cover the seeds and to absorb the remaining water (as if the mould were sawdust).
Acting like that you should probably absorb/drain a great deal of water and - at the same time - leave the proper amount of water to assure the proper amount of humidity that the grass seeds need.
Just try. If it does not work, you do not loose anything: you continue having your "messy" lawn... :hehe:

 

Personally I have never had the time / patience to train our dogs beyond the basics of Sit & Stay.

Pouring a bucket, or so, of water where the dogs pee will help - if you keep a full bucket by the back door and go out when you let them out. Although I expect there are times when they are out by themselves when you won't be able to do that.

If you get it down to a manageable level (only a few "ruined" patches over a reasonable length of time) you could sow/grow some "turf" in seed trays, and then just cut out the ruined areas and replace with a piece from the seed tray.

Or if you have borders around the edge you could just "tidy up" the edge and steal an inch or two strip, roll it round in a spiral and use that for the "patch". Over time you will have to strip off the turf at the border edge, move it all out a couple of inches, so the edge is back to its original position, and fill in the gap behind with some soil (i.e. the accumulated soil from the ruined areas) and sow some grass seed in the bare gap. Depending on how successful you are with the bucket-of-water it may be years before you need to move the border-edge back out again (or you will just live with slightly growing borders!)

To improve the drainage, in a cheap and cheerful way, I would use a border fork, push it well in (i.e. using your foot), wiggle slightly (if the surface lifts a bit that's fine, it will go back down when you walk / mow it over time, but you don't want to actually be digging it up!)

If you have time / money / inclination you can back-fill the spike-holes left by the fork with sharp (not builders') sand

Then see how quickly a downpour soaks away after doing that, if its still really slow then you'll need some land drains to move the water which is a step-up in terms of time & effort, but will definitely fix the draining.

You could consider sowing a tougher grass that will withstand the wear & tear better and/or not cut the lawn too short (so more like the length of a football pitch, rather than a bowling green ) so that the lawn can withstand the onslaught