Doggy damage

Hello - new user here.

My girlfriend has just got a rescue greyhound, which is a delightful dog. Unfortunately, when she (the dog that is!), comes over on a weekend and relieves herself on my small lawn, I'm left with yellow burns all over the lawn. Is there anything I can do about this other than following her (the dog that is!) round with a bucket of water? Can the grass be revived after the event or is it to late? I was thinking of extending the lawn, but there doesn't seem much point as I will just be creating a larger toilet!

 

The grass will recover, but obviously its more noticeable on a small lawn.

Bucket of water is definitely Plan A

And Plan B would be to train the dog to use a specific area. The dog training books I have read say to use the Command when the dog does the action you want, and then when you use the command they will associate it with doing that action to please you.

 

I must say that owning two female dogs myself, our grass never looked great but it did help with buckets of water on patches ..... and yes training them to pee somewhere else!

Before we had all the grass removed and decking put down, we did though used to fence the grass off with a piece of expanding trellis that had legs (to make it freestanding). That did work but did become a bit of a pain, although if you only had to do that at the weekends it wouldnt be so bad.

We did have all our grass removed in the end, as it never looked great and its the dogs home too As yours is only a visitor though, fencing it off while you train her to pee somewhere else would certainly work.

 

or Plan C-get your girlfriend to follow her around and water it in.

 

I favour Plan-D - get your Mistress to complain to your Girlfriend about the state of the lawn ...

... I'll get my coat!

 

You managed to train a Jack Russell ????? Wow I am impressed!!! :hehe:

Would you like to come and train our stubborn little miss ? :wink:

Our collie X on the other hand, thankfully only need to be shown a few times !

 

Thanks folks.
So to summarize, it's more of a dog training issue then. Perhaps I should subscribe to a dog forum instead of a gardening forum!
I've got more chance of training the girlfriend and mistress than the dog (have you ever tried catching a greyhound!).
I take it there are no lawn tonics that will repair the damage ......... no, thought not ....... i'll get me coat.

Thanks again,
PS. You're all mad

 

"I take it there are no lawn tonics that will repair the damage"

You could growth some replacement turf in, say, seed trays - and cut out damaged areas and replace ... but I suspect that may not be worth it?

I hadn't really thought about a Tonic. There are "green-up" lawn products, but I think the problem is that the area has been over-fertilized, so re-seeding is the remedy (which isn't helpful because a re-seeded area will take 6 months to "blend in" - so turf is the only real repair answer ... unless someone can come up with a different explanation?)

 

"PS. You're all mad"

You were GOING to put "Barking" in there but bottled out, right?