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Pets in the Yard—Tips for Creating a Beautiful Garden That's Friendly to Dogs and Cats
Plants & Gardens News | Volume 22, Number 1 | Summer 2007
by Ilene Sternberg
Illustration by Peggy Fussell
Though I don't have any pets at the moment, over the years I've always found cats and dogs to be delightful garden companions. But there can be downsides to letting them run loose in the yard: They dig, poop, pee, gnaw on plants (sometimes toxic ones), trample flowers and planting beds, and scare away or devour wildlife. Take my old black Labrador retriever, Lola. Before she went to that big kennel in the sky, she excavated a pit under a Pfitzer juniper so deep I was afraid my garden would be overrun by archaeologists.
Then again, domesticated animals can also be helpful in the garden. Shortly after the juniper incident, Lola dug a trench around a pieris that actually improved the health of the shrub, which had been planted too deeply. Dogs can also be useful for varmint control, especially if you have a deer problem. Cats can help keep mice, voles, rabbits, squirrels, and assorted other rodents from unearthing your bulbs, chewing on plant roots, and chomping on flowers. Your pet turtle might cull a few undesirable insects and slugs.
In any case, if you're going to share your outdoor green space with cats or dogs or both, you need to design a pet- and plant-friendly environment. Following are some suggestions for preserving the safety and comfort of your animals, the beauty of your garden, and your peace of mind.
Design Essentials
Perimeter fencing: A pet wandering around the neighborhood is just trouble waiting to happen. Thus, a fence around the perimeter of the garden is essential. For dogs, it should be at least four feet tall—five or six for “athletic” canines (the ones wearing hightops). Make sure your dog can't dig her way under the fence or get her nose or other body parts trapped in the links or picket spaces. Some dogs can climb chain links easily, and invisible fences might keep your pet in but won't keep undesirable strays out. Fences, of course, won't restrain a cat, unless you have a cagelike affair of small-mesh fencing enclosed on the top as well as the sides. Responsible cat owners should consider this option, unless they plan to supervise their pet's activities outdoors.
Paths: Consider installing stone or brick paths, particularly just inside the perimeter of your yard, where dogs like to patrol. This will reduce the incidence of battered shrubs. Playful dogs can easily disturb mulch or pea gravel—another plus for solid surfaces. Cats, naturally, will ignore your “keep on the path” signs and wander wherever they please.
Shade and Shelter: Always make sure your pet has ready access to a shady spot in the garden—under a tree or awning, say—to get relief from the sun's rays or high heat. Provide cover from bad weather too (an opening under a porch might do). Ensure that your cat has a secure hideout in the event that it is chased.
Fresh water: A small pond or other water feature can supply drinking water to your pets, and some dogs love to take a dip during hot weather. For this reason, avoid using bromine or other dangerous chemical pond additives. Use barley straw or bacterial additives to control algae instead. If you keep fish, place a net or screen just under the water surface to protect them from fishing felines. I always provided a fresh water bowl for my animal buddies, but the cats invariably opted for drinking out of the putrid, foul-smelling water in my lotus tubs—and, well, you know from which indoor bowl dogs like to drink.
Protecting Your Plants
Decorative pickets: Place metal, wood, or bamboo stakes anywhere you don't want your dog or cat to lie down on or tread upon delicate plants. Raised beds might keep dogs out of gardening areas, but cats find them attractive.
Trellises and arbors: Not only do these support climbing plants, but they can also create a pathway that will direct a dog's movement through the landscape. Cats, of course, don't take direction well.
Bigger is better: Large, well–established plants command more respect from dogs than tiny saplings, which make great chew toys. Surround fragile new plants with tomato cages, chicken wire, or pickets until they're settled in.
Barriers: Fence areas you never want disturbed, such as veggie gardens. Cats don't like coffee, which is why you never see any hanging around Starbucks. Spreading coffee grounds around acid-loving plants helps the plants and will keep Puss away. Coleus canin, a drought-tolerant annual with blue flowers, is touted to repel cats, dogs, foxes, and rabbits. Avoid bare soil: Use groundcovers between trees and shrubs to dissuade pets from digging, or mulch with stones. If you're trying to grow a new lawn, sod is quicker to establish than seed.
Protecting Your Pets
Balance beauty and practicality: Use plants that are attractive, practical, and durable, as well as hospitable to your pets (i.e., nothing thorny, spiky, or “burry”). If you really want to make your cat feel at home, plant a kitty theme garden with catmint, catnip, cattails, cats-paw, cats-breeches, pussy-toes, and of course, pussy willow. But seriously, cats seem to like valerian, heather, alyssum, oat grass, and wheatgrass but hold their noses around lavender, rue, geranium, artemisia, and lemon thyme.
Use nontoxic plants: The roster of plants that can harm animals is staggering, and often specific to particular species. Plants can cause digestive upset, skin rash, damage to vital organs, and death. Yew (Taxus species), for example, is so toxic that a dog need eat only one tenth of one percent of his body weight of the tree to die. Equally noxious to cats are most lilies (Lilium species). Comprehensive lists of house and garden plants that are toxic and—better yet—nontoxic to pets are available on the website of the ASPCA (www.aspca.org; look under Animal Poison Control). If your pet scarfs down, or even nibbles, a poisonous plant, call your vet immediately.
Gardening naturally: Treating your plants with nasty chemicals may render them toxic to your pets. But even some features of the organic garden can hold hidden dangers for animals. A compost pile—which some dogs find irresistible—may contain dangerous parasites, deadly plants, or barbed seeds that can get caught in your pet's throat. Cocoa shell mulch is also poisonous.
Ticks and fleas: Always put a flea and tick collar on your pets, and check them often for these parasites. Dogs and cats can get Lyme disease. In fact, ask your doctor if you should wear a tick and flea collar too.
Digging Dogs
Dogs dig for several reasons, few of them beneficial to a gardener. Possible motivations are anxiety, loneliness, exercise, pleasure, and the instinct to bury things—toys, bones, perhaps the cat. Lola dug to escape the heat in, yes, the dog days of summer. Here are a few “last ditch” suggestions to eliminate bothersome burrowing:
Garden alone: Since dogs like to mimic, keep them inside when you wield your shovel.
Create a digging pit: If Fido is determined to excavate, give him his own special place, bury something he likes, and praise him for confining his hobby to that area.
Block the holes: Deny your pet access to sites where she persistently mines, using chicken wire anchored to the ground.
Exercise: Bored dogs have excess energy. Work your dog at least 30 minutes, twice a day. Have him fold laundry or empty the dishwasher if necessary.
Eliminate quarry: If mice and moles are driving your dog to dig, try to “disinvite” them using methods that don't harm any of the animals.
Toilet Trouble
Sanitary sandboxes: All the world's a cat's litter box, unless you provide an official one outdoors. Sand piled in a remote corner where kitties can have a little privacy might do. If you create a framed box, bury a loose wire screen under four inches of sand to make sifting and disposing of solid matter painless. If you have a sandbox for your toddler, keep a lid on the box when no one's playing there, and supervise its use by children, just in case your or a neighbor's cat has breached security and left behind a surprise.
Potty training: Dogs can usually be persuaded to confine their pottying (as opposed to their partying) to a particular place. Male dogs respond well to a designated “lift-your-leg” post in the ground, which helps prevent collateral damage to plants. Try to create a quiet area screened by a trellis or shrubs and covered with pea gravel or wood chips. Training requires time, patience, and persistence: When you catch Spot with his legs crossed, take him to the chosen spot on a leash, using whatever customary phrase he knows to coax him to perform that task on demand. If he doesn't perform readily, wait about 20 minutes and try again. Reward success with lavish praise and treats, and after a week or so, try this off the leash. Eventually, he will head for the spot himself. If not, back to the leash. If he regresses, don't reprimand him or react excessively. Hose down the area and return to step one. Too much nitrogen from dog urine in one spot will “burn” plants and cause lawn damage. But if you follow doggie around spraying a hose wherever and whenever she urinates, the diluted nitrogen may actually green up your lawn!
Scoop that poop: Remove droppings and hose down the targeted areas often to dispel odors and dilute urine. Definitely don't add droppings to your compost pile.
Ilene Sternberg is an award-winning garden writer and the author of Best Garden Plants for Pennsylvania (Lone Pine Publishing).